National Genius Si̇nan and Historiography of Classical Ottoman Architecture

Creation of a National Genius: Si̇nan and the Historiography of "Classical" Ottoman
Architecture
Author(s): Gülru Neci̇poğlu
Source: Muqarnas, Vol. 24, History and Ideology: Architectural Heritage of the "Lands of
Rum" (2007), pp. 141-183
Published by: BRILL
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25482458 .
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GULRU NECIPOGLU
CREATION OF A NATIONAL GENIUS: SINAN AND THE

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF "CLASSICAL" OTTOMAN ARCHITECTURE
The insistence of canonical his Western architectural tradition, which culminates
twentieth-century ing
toriography
on the Turkishness of "classical" Otto with modernism (fig. 1).
man architecture, codified Sinan's tenure as In of art and architecture that con
during global surveys
chief royal architect (1539-88), has masked itsmore tinue to
classify Islamic visual culture as a medieval
inclusive "Rumi" visual identity.1 A combination of tradition, early modern monuments such as those
Orientalist and nationalist paradigms has hindered a of Sinan do not appear where they chronologically
fuller understanding of the ways in which the chief belong, namely,
in the "Renaissance"
period.
A case
architect's monumental mosque complexes, the ulti in point is Frederick Hartt's Art: A History ofPainting,
mate icons of the Ottoman "classical style," mediate
Sculpture, Architecture (1976), which includes the Otto
among the Islamic, and Italian Renaissance man mosques of Istanbul in an "Islamic Art"
Byzantine, chapter
architectural traditions.2 standard classifica under "The Middle Hartt
Defying placed Ages." acknowledges
tions based on a Eurocentric East-West divide, Sinan's the innovative transformation of and Sasa
Byzantine
domed mosques have also been nian in Islamic architecture, thanks
central-plan consigned prototypes early
to an architectural limbo in art histories because to the "natural mathematical bent of the Arabs" whose
global
until the Renaissance and aesthetic sense an art of
recently early modernity "highly developed produced
were defined as Western abstract architectural decoration." But he dismisses
exclusively phenomena.3
With a few exceptions,such as Spiro Kostofs A His the Ottoman mosques of Istanbul as uninventive vari
toryofArchitecture (1985), which compares Sinan with ations of

Hagia Sophia and overlooks the simultane
his Italian in a on ous
contemporaries chapter early mod emulation in Renaissance
Italy of Justinian's cel
ern Istanbul and Venice, survey books have
generally ebrated church. This double standard denies creative
tended to insert the entire Islamic tradition after the to the so-called "later Muslim"
agency period, when,
Christian and This prac in his the classical Mediterranean her
"Early Byzantine" period.4 interpretation,
tice is rooted in the becomes the exclusive of Renaissance
nineteenth-century conceptualiza itage preserve
tion of Islamic architecture as an offshoot of the late "The Ottoman Turks...were no means as
Europe: by
antique Mediterranean transformed under inventive as their Arab
heritage predecessors.. .Hugely impressed
the Umayyad and Abbasid into a non-West Ottomans confined themselves
caliphates by Hagia Sophia...the
ern medieval tradition notable for its to innumerable of Justinian's mas
particularly producing replicas
ornamental character. The essentialization of "Sara in medium, and small sizes."6
terpiece large,
cenic" or "Mahometan" architecture as a "non-histor Hartt's ethnicized aesthetic echoes nine
judgment
ical style" permanently fixed in a medieval past finds Orientalist that essen
teenth-century paradigms doubly
ultimate in Banister Fletcher's A tialized the Islamic tradition of architecture
expression History of by partition
Architecture on theComparative Method (1896), where it ing
it into ahistorical "schools" ethno-racial
reflecting
is with other non-Western Chi character traits
grouped styles (Indian, (Arabian, Moorish, Persian, Turkish,
nese, Japanese, Central American) that emphasize "dec and In this the "Turks"
Indian). hierarchy, occupied
orative schemes" unlike those of "which have the lowest those "races" that embraced
Europe, position among
progressed the successive solution of constructive Islam, "the most stolid and least and the
by being refined,
problems."5 In Fletcher's famous "Tree of Architec least of such an art
capable consequently elaborating
ture," the "Saracenic and its timeless as we find in all other countries to this faith."7
style" compan subject
ions stand in stark contrast to the evolv Since the medieval was as a "clas
historically period privileged

142 GULRU NECIPOGLU
Renaissance Thanks to their

Italy. anxiety regarding
"influence," nationalist counternarratives failed
equally
to come to terms with this architectural dialogue.
My paper focuses on the dominant discourses of

selected late-nineteenth- and
early-twentieth-century
texts, a group of Euro
produced by heterogeneous
and Turkish authors, that have contributed to
pean
the methodological impasses of Sinan scholarship.
In these texts, the person of the chief architect and
the "character" of his mosques constitute the

stylistic
focal point of narratives?ideological and often driven
concerns?that the contested
by presentist negotiate
origins and originality of classical Ottoman/Turkish

monumental architecture as a site of national iden
with the emergence of such narratives

tity. Starting
the late Ottoman I turn to their subse
during period,
quent reframing in the early republican era (1923-50)
and conclude with their echoes in canon
persisting
ical publications that proliferated in the second half
of the twentieth century.8
DESIGNATION OF SINANAS ARCHITECTURAL

GENIUS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN PERIOD
Sinan was first hailed as the ingenious codifier of an

of universal status, in
original dynastic style, worthy
the Usul-i Mimari-i cOsmanl (Fundamental Principles
of Ottoman Architecture): a monograph in Turkish,
French, and German commissioned com
by imperial
mand for the 1873 Vienna International Exposition
(fig. 2, a and b). Prepared under the supervision of
Ibrahim Edhem Pasha (Minister of Trade and Public
BANISTER TLLTCHLR. INV
Works) a committee of Ottoman
Thii Tnr ofArcitîw, ./.? ,'v -.:-: <r.u-;. ,; /.v/;?.? " : .sri : by cosmopolitan
/
' -:r: ' in':ucu< ,unrot ' r and this
itvlfi,hut rtu<tl><t.ikiK <;. -.v^-...';: / ,<;,\, bureaucrats, artists, architects, publication
tlJU.itfJon .1 ./:..;.'r,;?;of ."': */?.;. to Orientalist discourses that
indirectly responded
denied artistic to "the Turks"; its authors
creativity
Fig. 1. "The Tree of Architecture." (After Banister Fletcher,
the current of
A History of Architecture on the Comparative Method adopted European conceptualization
[New York
artistic as embodiments of "national character"
and London, 1924], iii) styles
to a status for Ottoman architecture.9
negotiate higher
to the
Singling out its stylisticconstants, corresponding
venerable character traits of a proto-national dynasty,
as a historically evolv
they defined architectural style
sical when the norms of Islamic archi
age" typically
tecture
supposedly
became fixed, the monuments of
ing imperial dynastic tradition, labeled "Ottoman"
"later Muslim" dynasties
were often ranked as deriva
(Osmanh) .10
tive regional variants of already established prototypes. This "invention of tradition" attempts to rectify the
Hence, Orientalist paradigms failed to historicize Si prevailing pejorative
assessments of "Turkish" archi
nan's renewed modern with the classi tecture articulated in such as Charles
early dialogue publications
cal Mediterranean heritage
of the "lands of Rum"?a Texier's Description de TAsieMineure, faite par ordre du
heritage
that was concurrently being reinterpreted
in gouvernementfrancais de 1833 a 1837 (1839-49). Echoing

CREATION OF A NATIONAL GENIUS 143
a b
a and b. Front and back cover of Marie de Launay, Pietro et al., Usul-i Mimdri-i cOsmani = L'architecture otto
Fig. 2, Montani,
mane = Die ottomanische Baukunst (Istanbul, 1873).
the Napoleonic paradigm of the Description de l'Egypte into a Muslim sanctuary, Texier describes two sixteenth
(1809-28), which initiated an ideological discourse on century examples (works of Sinan) constructed in this
the extinction of the "Arab" architectural in manner in Uskiidar:

genius
under the yoke of the "Ottoman Turks," Texi
Egypt These monuments were built in a period when Turk
er's book makes the following judgment on the "char ish architecture abandoned the Arab of which
school,
acter of Turkish in Bursa: an
mosques" it had been original reflection, only to throw itself
into a bastard architecture that is neither Muslim nor
For a long time it has been said that the Ottomans (Osman
Christian.12
lis) do not have an architecture particular to their nation
tribes with tents, they remained
(nation); being strang Universal expositions intensified the rivalrybetween the
ers to the art of construction, and their public edifices
"Arab" and "Turkish" schools of architecture, associated
are the works of foreigners, Arab and Persian architects
with the semi-autonomous state
respectively Egyptian
initially, and Greek architects afterwards. No other type
and its Ottoman overlord. An turning point
of edifice provides better proof of this fact than their important
was the Paris Exposition of 1867, attended by Sultan
religious monuments."11
Abdulaziz and theViceroy of Egypt, Ismacil Pasha, who
Observing that all later mosques in the Ottoman had just received the title of Khedive as a mark of
Empire "imitated" Hagia Sophia after its conversion increased Egyptian autonomy. The catalogue L 'Egyptea

144 GTJLRU NECIPOGLU
TExposition universelle de 1867, commissioned by ismacil ornaments are characterized by the "most fantastic
Pasha from Charles Edmond, explicitly criticizes "the forms intimately blended, as ifby a miracle, with the
Turks" for "their inability both to invent their own art regular figures
of
geometry."20
Salaheddin Bey's
cat
and to assimilate the art of others with intelligence and alogue, by contrast, emphasizes primacy
the of ratio
taste." The "Turkish" of Istanbul are described nal architectural to counter the widespread
mosques principles
as "mere copies of Hagia Sophia," distinguished from presumption
"that there exists no Ottoman art, and
Byzantine churches only byminarets and walls decorated that all Oriental are due to at
productions caprice,
with and "After stolen times most
"arabesques" inscriptions: having extravagant."21
the Arab genius, [the Turks] let it die."13 The contention of principled rationality is further
The of this catalogue, written elaborated in the Usui, which to
tripartite periodization responds depreciatory
by French savants steeped in theNapoleonic tradition of character evaluations of "Turkish" architecture colored
theDescription de TEgypte,relegates the "Muhammedan" by Western colonial ambitions in the disintegrating

(Mahometane) architecture of the "Arab race" to territories of the late Ottoman where Euro
Egypt's Empire,
medieval past, which is framed by the ancient and pean powers were
positing
themselves as
protectors of
modern eras.14 Following

a
biological trajectory
of the Arab artistic genius "all but extinguished" under
birth, and decay?which is reversed artistic the "barbarism" of the Turks. Its four parts consist of
growth, by
rebirth under the a historical overview of evolution; a theoreti
present regime?"Muhammedan" stylistic
architecture enters into a period of deplorable decline cal section on fundamental architectural
principles;
a
with the subjugation of the Arab race by the Osman description

of selected sultanic mosques, mausoleums,
lis, a "foreign
race" of Turkish conquerors who from and public fountains inOttoman capital cities (Bursa,
the sixteenth onwards "remained to Istanbul, and Edirne); and a on the rules of
century strangers chapter
the intellectual made in the world."15 Com ornament subordinated to architectonic forms. The
conquests
the first mosques along the Nile to the first Usui proudly proclaims the participation in world civ
paring
Gothic cathedrals on the banks of the Seine, Edmond ilization of the Ottomans' rationalist school of archi
medieval as the from which tecture, which, with its flexible universal characteris
portrays Egypt epicenter
"Muhammedan" architecture to other tics, is to the modern age. The of
spreads regions adaptable preface
(Syria, Iran, Sicily, Africa, Spain, and Turkey).16 Like the publication states that Ottoman monuments, espe
wise, the modern Egypt of Muhammad cAli and his cially mosques, embody
"architectural forms conceived
Ismacil Pasha, faithful followers of in a to the dis

grandson Napo particular style conforming approved
made "the Oriental return to itself," of the Ottoman nation." Thanks to consis
leon, who genius positions
is destined to initiate "the rest of the Orient tomod tent "rules," architecture made extraordinary progress,
ern civilization."17 and eminent architects like Sinan "extend
emerged,
La Turquie a Êxposition universelle de 1867, a cata ing their reputation throughout
the world." The pur
of the Usui is to demonstrate the of
logue
commissioned from Salaheddin Bey by Sultan pose "superiority
Abdulaziz, the Usui for the same Ottoman architecture" and introduce to the world its
prefigures (written
sultan in 1873) by highlighting the rational construc masters and masterpieces;
the latter are illustrated by
tion of Ottoman architecture. Hence it is destined to serve as a basis of instruction for
principles drawings
unlike Edmond's text, which the ornamen "modern architects."22
foregrounds
tal character and of Arab architec Like Edmond's which boasts about the
"charming fantasy" catalogue,
the
"the arbitrary and of Arab architecture from to other coun
ture, governed by capricious."18 spread Egypt
out the as the character tries, the Usui claims that the Ottoman school of
Singling "arabesque" principal
istic of Egypt's medieval "Muhammedan" monuments, architecture was disseminated as far as India by Si
Edmond asserts that they lack the "rules and princi nan's pupils (allegedly invited by theMughal emperor
that govern Western for on Babur, who in 1530, before the ten
ples" architecture, they rely passed away long
chance rather than reason.19 The ure of the chief architect). to this anachro
"gracious geometry According
of imagination and the delirium of algebra" embodied nistic claim, repeated
in later
publications,
these pupils
in is, in Edmond's view, included Mimar Yusuf, who built the world-renowned
"arabesques" prefigured by
the character of the Prophet Muhammad, which com of Agra, Lahore, Delhi, and Kashmir.23 The
palace-forts
bines "enthusiasm with calculation." with Usui's historical overview of stylistic evolution, written
Imprinted
the "Arab of the "race of Muhammad," these the Ottoman bureaucrat Victor Marie de Launay
spirit" by

(who once frequented courses in the Ecole des Beaux da Vignola's Renaissance treatise on orders, La regola
Arts), constructs, as did Edmond's catalogue,
a
biolog
delli cinque ordini (Rome, 1562).28
ical trajectory of birth, growth, and decay, followed by Although
Montani makes no reference to the Ital
rebirth under the present to de ian Renaissance, he differentiates Ottoman

regime.24 According explicitly
Sinan's to a age fall architecture from the Byzantine, Gothic,
Launay, style corresponds golden styles?namely,
ing between the rise and the decline of the dynasty, Arab, Persian, Indian, and Chinese?that "lack orders"
which is currently being revitalized by Sultan Abdulaziz, and
rely
on conventional forms whose adjunction
the patron of a "neo-Ottoman" architectural renais on the architect's The
depends "caprice." "princi
sance. Sinan is identified as the most of character" of the Ottoman
ingenious pal high style perfected
all Ottoman architects, and his codification of Sinan is its "noble This stands out
dynas by severity." style
tic style coincides with the zenith of imperial glory from its Arab, Persian, and Arabo-Indian (arabo-indi
under Sultan Siileyman the Lawgiver (le legislateur, r. ens) counterparts in its restrained richness of orna
1520-66). This internally evolving style originates in ment, created

by decorators conforming
to the "archi
Bursa after initial tect's and "never the

fifteenth-century fourteenth-century conception" guided by caprices
with a manner of chance."29 it is to other
experiments hybrid "semi-Byzantine" By implication, superior
and develops further in
early-sixteenth-century Istan schools of Islamic architecture judged by European
bul. The "school of Sinan," it is is perpetu authors to be ornamental and hence irratio
argued, fancifully
ated until the mid-seventeenth after which, nal in to Western architecture.30
century, comparison
from the
eighteenth century onwards, the
"rationality
The characteristics of the high Ottoman style,which
of art" andthe of Ottoman architectural taste" echo Western classical norms of beauty, are embodied
"purity
become "denatured" and the in the and the master
entirely "depraved" by Suleymaniye Selimiye mosques,
indiscriminate infiltration of Western influences. In chosen the authors of the Usui as
pieces by exemplars
this narrative of then, the of Sinan's a-d, and
dynastic self-representation, incomparable "genius" (figs. 5,
of in Sinan's 6).31 The of these
sixteenth-century purification hybridity monographic descriptions mosques
rational
style gives way to a loss of
purity
and hence of
emphasize two additional fundamental principles of
national character, to be revived the "renais Ottoman architecture: scenic and the
only by siting perfect
unity of the whole.32 The Selimiye, which represents
sance of Ottoman architecture" under the illustrious
patronage of the
currently reigning sultan.25 the culmination of Sinan's style, isjudged superior not
The theoretical section, written by Pietro Montani only to the Suleymaniye but also to all other "Islamic
(Montani Efendi), a Levantine Italian artist-architect monuments." With its and the
"great sobriety exqui
raised in Istanbul, Sinan as the of site of its ornamentation," it is a monument
portrays "legislator purity
national architecture," who renews the in which "the whole and the details are conceived in
style developed
a novel
by his predecessors "with
purification of forms, a
particularly majestic, noble, and severe
style" that
their and them with nevertheless "does not exclude richness and above all
fixing proportions supplementing
new ones."26 It is Sinan who codifies the three archi This excellence of the illus
grace." "masterpiece par
tectural orders to Doric, Ionic, and trious master Sinan, the author of so master
(corresponding many
Corinthian) on which the of the is therefore considered the marvel of
proportional system pieces," "rightly
high Ottoman style is allegedly based, orders
comple Ottoman architecture: a marvel of
appropriate pro
mented a fourth semi-order in the "Gothic man of and of of
by portions, severity majesty style, gracious
ner" that gives flexibility to details (fig. 3, a-d). The and purity of ornamentation."33
simplicity
"module" used for the of propor The Usui contributed to Sinan's international fame
determining harmony
tions in this system, which is "richer" than the Gothic
by publishing as an appendix the Tezkiretul-Ebniye,
mode of construction and more "elastic" than the clas one of the versions of the Turkish the
autobiography
sical orders, is derived from the width of the chief architect dictated to the Mustafa
capital poet-painter
(fig. 4).27 Thus the style legislated by Sinan implicitly Saci. (The abbreviated French and German transla
parallels that of the high Renaissance, which is based tions of this autobiographical text include only a list
on the module and orders. In fact, later nationalist of numerous collaborative monuments claimed
by
critics of the eclectic "neo-Ottoman renaissance" Sinan as his own The
style works).34 appended autobiog
promoted by the Usui would accuse Montani Efendi of raphy is not analyzed in the Usui, which simply men
tions Sinan's training in the Janissary corps
prior to
the Ottoman orders from Giacomo Barozzi
deriving

146 GULRU NECIPOGLU
JuUctur*Ultomaiw
_PW),.hTlieone de VAr
?:-??
,-.-.- i I 7;
I
IV
M.iv-h-
i '^m
v=-J.*.t=T FK?/
hi *
I;
'
< : L i;; !!
I|i :
j
_I_I_L__[\ I
a b
a. L'ordre
Fig. 3, a-d. Pietro Montani, representations of the Ottoman orders: echanfrine. b. L'ordre brechiforme. c. L'ordre crystal
lise, d. L'ordonnance a (After Marie de Launay et al., Usui, "Theorie de l'architecture ottomane,"
faisceaux. pis. 2, 4, 6, 3)
his over the course of his life, count this text would leave a on
building, long lasting imprint subsequent
less monuments to the Ottoman his Turkish which in the wake of ethno
"glorify dynasty, publications,
fatherland, and Islam." The authors of the Usui do not centric nationalism at the turn of the century began
attempt to identify the chief architect's ethnic origin, to trace the evolution of the Ottoman architectural
apparently deeming
it irrelevant because of the multi style, perfected by Sinan, to that of the "Seljuk Turks"
ethnic inclusiveness of the Ottoman polity.35 Nor do inAnatolia, who are hardly mentioned in the Usui?1
they allude to Sinan's competitive dialogue with Hagia The cult of Sinan was nurtured
by
his
self-mytholo
Sophia in the Suleymaniye and Selimiye mosques, a gizing autobiographies, which were likely inspired by
dialogue to which the chief architect explicitly refers the lives of Italian Renaissance architects and were
in his autobiographies, which also testify to his rivalry written, according

to his own words, to leave the per
with his Ottoman and his manent mark of his name and "on the
predecessors contempo reputation
raries in Renaissance The proto pages of time." These
Europe. dynastic widely circulating autobiograph
nationalism of the UsuVs narrative of evolu ical texts, which the chief architect self-con
stylistic through
tion, tracing
an internal process of
purification
that sciously participated in the Renaissance discourse
in the rational school of Sinan, on creative a role in
crystallizes entirely genius, played pivotal directing
sidesteps
the
much-maligned
"influence" of Hagia the focus of early historical studies on his life and
As we shall see, the rationalist of works 7, a-b).38 One such is the late
Sophia.36 paradigm (fig. example

"". . ; 'A-.:- !!!!'. .'1.^,11,. it--l-?

TI....M.. !, rArol " ":
^ _
I SSSSww^ I , j '.
'
w W =4( ?[ ' '
:
I""I Ii^ !
i 'i I
' ' i
! |!
i > I ~7-1
' !' M
J \ \ I ^ H: i
i i "itfrzi... _Jj _
c d
Fig. 3.
Ottoman intellectual Ahmed Cevdet's

preface
to the Christo, and describing the budding carpentry skills
Tezkiretu
I-Bunyan, another version of the chief archi of the child prodigy: "When it came to games, he only
tect's
autobiographies, published
in 1897.
Paraphras derived pleasure from getting hold of carpentry tools
ing the Usui's historical overview, the
preface
fabri with which he would create in their backyard now a
cates a of Sinan based on a source chicken a now himself
biography primary coop, pool fountain, occupying
inArabic (Quyudat-iMuhimme) supposedly written in with architectural
tasks like water channels."39
repairing
the chief architect's lifetime, which not surprisingly Cevdet also such information about the
gives precise
thereafter. This source chief architect's and character that one
disappeared shortly purported physiognomy
allowed Cevdet to invent colorful details missing from think he knew him personally:
might
Sinan's laconic which mention
autobiographies, only
Sinan the Great was tall and thin, with a heavy beard and
his recruitment as a cadet (acemi nov
Janissary oglan,
ice boy) from the Kayseri region, without providing moustache, black eyes, a wheat-colored complexion, and
a handsome face; he was a conversationalist, very gener
clues about his ethnic origin and childhood before
ous, charitable to the poor, and of composing
he converted to Islam and was trained as a capable
carpen
poetry; he knew Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Greek,
ter at the school of novices in Istanbul. The Quyudat
and he was very brave and courageous.40
conveniently fills in the blanks by providing Sinan's
exact birthday, identifying by name his Greek father, This verbal portrait of the chief architect as a fully

148 GULRU NECIPOGLU
'
''m' >>'ie >b- A:
I ,i.it'vluiv Ottomans
i-H
r_J;'
yJ!^|^r~-J j
r
17T |
1_,._ I_
- ^
!-r
Fig. 4. Pietro Montani, capital of the crystallized order by Sinan. Top: view of the capital. Center: plan of the same capital.
Bottom: base. (After Marie de Launay et al., Usui, "Theorie de l'architecture ottomane," pi. 8)

ssdo urns.
^^^ Jflg.jRwJpcB|BLJBrjfcp
'[? f6 l
jl u 1 Jtt 41 jJLJ
f| _
rj**q_ o_ _?j ( __ _ _
_JKj-'
'a 3. x'l
! a :
n H
5a. Pietro Montani, of the Suleymaniye in Istanbul, built in 1550-57. et

Fig. plan Mosque by Sinan (After Marie de Launay
al., Usui, "Mosquee Suleimanie," pi. 1)

150 GULRU NECIPOGLU
MusqiKe.Siilriinaiin'
Constantinople
Mosquee Suleimanie
Constantinople.
M?f.--::S2i
; ^r\?-J nl lllllr" ~~~?F*îInîiiil rr~~' x/'iinl
A*?4Sr
i^-.îir.r/
E.AolU ~*mlS*rrjk-*.'<*.//,
& ?m~UU,Um~Mt J,Vmetres.
+ ?ull,m*ent/.~-me*?c
' ' '

-;iv ? F M?manl del
5, b-c. Pietro Montani, sections of the Suleymaniye (After Marie de Launay et al., Usui, Suleimanie,"
Fig. Mosque. "Mosquee
pis. 2 and 3)

\Iosi|iiit SiiifiinatiH'a l'i)ii.sl;uitiiHi|il?'
r.
5d. Pietro Montani, elevation of the Suleymaniye (After Marie de Launay et al., Usui, Suleimanie,"
Fig. Mosque. "Mosquee
pi-4)
acculturated Greek-born Ottoman hints at a manifestation of Sinan's Gosset detected in

growing "genius,"
about his cultural Cevdet's its forms the of Greek humanism: thanks to
anxiety identity. preface spirit
to reclaim the artistic of Sinan as the refined taste of its details and its "observation of
attempts agency
the Ottomanized chief architect of a multiethnic and the principle of the Greeks that man is the king of
whose monuments, in the con creation," the dimensions in his
multilingual empire Selimiye's grandiose
tested terrain of architectural continued to be do not crush but rather enhance the
history, opinion dig
attributed to
"foreign" Greek architects. For instance, nity of the viewer and elevate the soul to the highest
Auguste Choisy's L'art de bdtir chez lesByzantins (1883) thoughts.43
had
recently
characterized the monumental
imperial
Die Baukunst Konstantinopels (1907), by the German
of "Sinan the Greek" as the last architectural historian Cornelius Gurlitt, was the ear
mosques representa
tives of architecture, which imitated liest to the
Byzantine Hagia European monograph acknowledge orig
Sophia
for the "new masters" of
Constantinople. Shortly inality of the "Turkish" school of architecture that
thereafter, Alphonse
Gosset's Les coupoles d'Orient et
emerged after the fall of Byzantium. Written at the
d'Occident (1889) repeated the stereotyped view of the height of the Ottoman-German alliance, thanks to
Ottomans as
"shepherds
and warriors without any art which the author obtained special permission to draw
or artists of their own."41 According
to this
publication,
and photograph Istanbul's mosques, this book ends
Sultan Suleyman's "Greek architect Sinan"
improved
with a picture of the Kaiser Wilhelm II Fountain at
the longitudinal plan of Hagia Sophia with more "ratio theHippodrome, completed in 1901?a Byzantinizing
nal" solutions in domed German neo-renaissance monument
centrally planned mosques commemorating
through
"his avid search for
perfection,
much like the emperor's 1898 visit to the city?which Wilhelm
his
predecessors
from the age of Pericles."42
Intensely presented as a gift symbolizing his friendship with Sul
admiring the Selimiye Mosque as themost remarkable tanAbdiilhamid II (figs. 8 and 9) .44Noting the lack of

152 GULRU NECIPOGLU
'.'Aw.w i
Mo-queft An-'inniJplfc
^ ,,
.W"^*^
,-> y j -j,
I- a a 4
tei ? ? fe^
Win ? nh^
'
0 U
i ;. ; a
Q U
S3 ii U
- - l
is i
a j L3
L__iM2ZM.^BH E^ ÎSIH^^
,._,
, ,Itinitr,.
6. Marie de Launay, of the Selimiye in Edirne, built in 1568-74. et al.,

Fig. plan Mosque by Sinan (After Marie de Launay
Usui, "Mosquee Selimie," pi. 1)

a and b. Miniature and detail: funeral of the deceased Sultan

Fig. 7, painting procession Siileyman, showing Sinan holding
a wooden cubit measure and overseeing construction of the sultan's mausoleum behind the qibla wall of the Suleymaniye
Tarikh-i Sultan ca. 1579. The Chester ms. T. 413, foi. 115v. (Photo
Mosque. Seyyid Lokman, Sulayman, Beatty Library, Dublin,
? The Chester Beatty Library)
in late and to
early Ottoman the achievements
monumentality Byzantine they deserve, comparable grand
domed sanctuaries, Gurlitt the scale of of the Italian Renaissance:
regards grand
the in as an achieve
imperial mosques Constantinople We have been enthusiastic in our praise of Italy, a coun
ment to be marveled at. he repeats Cevdet's
Although
try that at the end of the fifteenth century resurrected
account of Sinan's as the Greek-born son
parentage the art of ancient Rome after this achievement had lain
of Christo, he attributes the success of the imperial dormant for over a thousand the same
years.During
style not to the ethnic origin of its architects but to period, however, buildings
were erected on the
Bospho
their in the educational institutions rus that have been belittled reason
rigorous training for the simple that
of the Ottoman state, which statesmen it is no
produced great they were replicas of Hagia Sophia. Yet less a
and "creative like Sinan, who commanded renaissance of astounding that sprang up
geniuses" individuality
the guilds of building crafts as chief royal architect.45 from the soil made fertile by the spirit of ancient Greece.
Gurlitt finds the domed mosques of the Ottoman cap The revival of ancient perceptions of shape and form
ital, which in his view have not received the attention occurred here with the same freedom, independence,

DIE
BAUKUNST
KONSTANTINOPELS
VON
HEHAUSUEGEBEN
CORNELIUS GURJJTT
HOFRATR
RKHEIMER ANDER
PROFKSSOK SACHS.
KONKU HOCHSCHULE
H DRESDEN
9. Photograph of the Kaiser Wilhelm II Fountain at the

6erun Fig.
VERLEGT BEI ERNSTWASMUTHA.G Istanbul. (After Gurlitt, Die Baukunst Konstan
Hippodrome,
tinopels, pi. 39a)
Fig. 8. Title page from Cornelius Gurlitt, Die Baukunst Kon
stantinopels (Berlin, 1907).
I
rail -t*
_ * * " * "? * *?mjmjjct ,

""MB WM'm 'TMT^* ? < pintnumtKHAtiCTn 1tt?
.' U
I- --* .9 *?rfc
^S\'^V
'
v.1J ..^
: *ha -!
V:^' w ;-? *>; ?!
?:-"-:H l-M
F- fl|' A';--
^^B
fl .;^^^;----TP*BI?.-
"ii -vHfc.-jfc
.....
^Hfc.^H
-..-
---, =. H.-"---v^^' ^. - .. .
. ; - ?>> i-^. ^' . - .- <
U. i! \ .? .-^ ..^ : &"
Miwi*?*"* :. .:.-.A.-.'i^.:..i'..-.f::lt.b>,-^J
?^^3 # fc,
-^.i.-1-3-b- y-tt7-W*
Fig. 10a. Plan of the Suleymaniye Mosque and the mausoleums of Sultan Suleyman and his wife. (After Gurlitt, Die Baukunst
Konstantinopels, pi. 19h)

19.i MOSCHEEDES SULTANSULEIMANI j

|
1 (SULTANSULEIMAN DSCHAMI) I |
uiiiULLLj ?_l_jT^zzzrrzr-^p^
GRABMAL(TTRBK)DES SULTANS
-
f i i i i f itt\ r r r ^=
-r??,-:?'
wran^-~-:-
Fig. 10b. Section of the Suleymaniye Mosque and elevation and section of the mausoleum of Sultan Siileyman. (After Gurlitt,
Die Baukunst Konstantinopels, pi. 19i)

156 GULRU NECIPOGLU
DEN
DtftOI
HOftOONTALSCHXnT HAUPTKLPPELtfSM
DER
TAMMR
ill'lllillli
.....'l'^Millilfe|i|||l|lLJit||.Li)ji^
(Si-.
Fig. 10c. Plan of the domical superstructure and elevation of the Suleymaniye Mosque. (After Gurlitt, Die Baukunst Konstan
tinopels, pi. 19n)

" .'"' '
r "i
?.MEDRESE
BEISCHAHSADK fcMs^^fc<?^<&*1fl^
., : I ^ ^?^
**>-
Fig. 11. Plan and section of the ?ehzade Mehmed Mosque in Istanbul, built by Sinan in 1543-48. (After Gurlitt, Die Baukunst
Konstantinopels, pi. 18a)

><HVITT[>l|?:H IINKZKU.K l>lK MEDRESSK ~"\\ //x^" ^\\

J|H^^5 //* pPw"!
. . .
Wfrwwr*- .-__-.-.-.-,
-1
(fe-.-=-
a and b. Sections of the Sokollu Mehmed Pasha in Istanbul, built by Sinan, and elevation of the
Fig. 12, complex 1568-71,
north courtyard facade with upper madrasa, portal, shops, and public fountain. (After Cornelius Gurlitt, Die Baukunst Kon
stantinopels, pis. 26f, 26c)

and boldness, with the same artistic and creative force, TURKIFICATION OF SINAN IN THE EARLY
that was shaping the culture on the opposite shores of REPUBLICAN ERA
the Adriatic Sea.46
call for was

Babinger's interdisciplinary cooperation
Gurlitt's richly survey of Byzantine
illustrated and Otto not embraced until the founding of the Turkish Repub
man monuments in Constantinople not
only includes lic in 1923 provided a fresh impetus for the nascent
Sinan's major imperial complexes,
which feature monu field of Turcology, now actively cultivated by the new
mental with domes raised on four but nation-state. Around that time, the Austrian art his
mosques piers,
also his smaller domed edifices with hexagonal and torian Heinrich Gluck invited Babinger to submit an
support systems (figs. 10, a-c; 11; and 12, article about written sources on Ottoman court
octagonal primary
a and b). He thus initiated the
still-pervasive
classi architects and artists for the first volume of Jahrbuch
fication of the chief architect's mosques in terms of der asiatischen Kunst (1924).50 Gluck was a pioneer in
domed baldachins resting
on varied support systems,
the field of "Turkish art," launched by the studies
to create communal of his teacher, mentor, and collaborator Josef Strzy
always designed centrally planned
spaces for the ritual needs of Muslim congregations. gowski, the director of the Institut furKunstgeshichte
at the University of Vienna, who himself had sought
Another lasting legacy of Die Baukunst Konstantinopels
Asiatic for the "Northern" Germanic art of
was its focus on the and of Sinan's "con origins
clarity unity
and to counter
of a focus with the Austro-Hungary Germany. Attempting
ception space," resonating spatial
architecture the Eurocentric "humanist bias" that privileged the
of modernist European
preoccupations
"Southern" Greco-Roman tradition and the late antique
at the turn of the twentieth
century.47
Mediterranean of Islamic art,
his lead, the German Ori origins Strzygowski's
Following compatriot's
controversial ethnoracial theories the west
entalist Franz Babinger was the first historian to draw emphasized
ward dissemination of "Aryan" artistic forms through
international attention to Sinan, with a 1914 article
the nomadic of the Turks, who had gen
on the "Turkish Renaissance." In migrations
it, Babinger paid
been dismissed as "barbarians." The
to architect as the Greek-born mas erally expansive
tribute the chief
scope of this
ter of a renaissance initiated under geographical pan-Germanic perspective,
sixteenth-century the artistic status
much of Eurasia,
when embracing upgraded
the patronage of Sultan Suleyman, central-plan
of Turkic peoples to that of mediators between East
domed sanctuaries to those of Bramante,
comparable and West.51 the of Turko
Foregrounding importance
Giuliano da Baldassare Peruzzi, and Michel
Sangallo, Iranian artistic the Turkic
syntheses catalyzed by migra
came into being. Babinger proposed that the
angelo tions, Strzygowski declared that "the Turks played the
Ottoman architect" Sinan, who remained
"greatest same role in Asia as the Germans did in Not
Europe."52
be given deserved
practically unknown in Europe, a
surprisingly, his theories struck chord with nationalist
with a scholarly monograph on his
global recognition sentiments in the newly founded Turkish Republic,
life and works. For this urgent task Babinger enlisted which was for its own cultural roots in the
searching
the of art historians, with
interdisciplinary cooperation eastern homelands of the Turks. Among Strzygowski's
their newly developed universal techniques of formal disciples, Ernst Diez and Katharina Otto-Dorn
would
and Orientalist who the at the
eventually hold prominent teaching positions
analysis, historians, possessed
in the "astound
linguistic
skills required
for research Universities of Istanbul and Ankara during the 1940s
rich" Turkish archives. As a he their Gluck's
ingly starting point, and 1950s, following colleague premature
oeuvre
compiled
an
inventory
of the chief architect's death in 1930 at the age of forty.53
based edition of the TezkiretuI Bunyan,
on Cevdet's The earliest monograph on "Turkish art"was Gliick's
unsuspectingly repeating the fabricated biograph Turkische Kunst (1917), based on an inaugural lecture
ical details of its preface.48 A year later, Babinger that he delivered in Istanbul for the founding of the
would coin the nickname "Ottoman Michelangelo" short-lived Hungarian Institute, which closed down
for Sinan, who was soon transformed into the sym in 1918 upon the defeat in the First World War of
bol of a newly born nation-state's creative as the the allied Ottoman and
spirit Austro-Hungarian empires.
"Turkish Michelangelo."49 This booklet reflects the Institute's particular inter
est in Turkish culture at a time when the cultural
roots of Hungary were in Central Asia;

being sought

its planned publications also included monographs Vienna.57 Strzygowski's

article for Turkiyat Mecmuasi,
on Turkish architecture and translations of primary titled "The Turks and the Question of Central Asian
sources on the lives of Ottoman artists and architects. Art," adapts theories he developed in 1917 for a new
Gluck the Turks as visual culture audience. He not recommends the creation in
portrays transmitting only
across the Eurasian lands via westward that Ankara of a national museum of "Turkish art" of all
migrations
culminated in the formation of Anatolian Seljuk and periods but also announces his desire, fueled by the
Ottoman art. that successive Turkic foundation of the to write a
Arguing dynasties republican regime, grand
kneaded with their own national "spirit" the diverse survey of the arts of the Turks from their ancient ori
traditions they encountered in lands extending from gins

to the
present.58
China to Europe, Gluck attributes originality to the Gliick's article, titled "The Status of Turkish Art in
artistic syntheses that emerged from this process of cre theWorld," similarly declares his intention to prepare
ative often as "imitation." a in collaboration with his col
"transformation," disparaged comprehensive survey
He highlights the agency of patrons and "national art league Mehmed Aga-Oglu, an Azerbaijani Turk who
ists" like Sinan, who each new artistic trained inTurcology at theUniversity ofMoscow (1912
stamped synthe
siswith the unchanging imprint of the "Turkish spirit." 16) before emigrating to Istanbul. Subsequently sent
Like Gurlitt, Gluck credits the Ottomans with reviv to
study
in
Germany and Austria as the future direc
the idea, dormant for a thousand of build tor of theMuseum of Turkish and Islamic Art in Istan
ing years,
ing monumental
structures in the manner of
Hagia
bul, Aga-Oglu was appointed to the position he had
he views this renaissance as rooted in earlier been groomed for upon obtaining his doctorate with
Sophia;
Turkic
experiments
with domed
spaces.54 Strzygowski in 1927. Gliick's article, written the same
The role of Sinan as the creator of a new year, is a revised version of the lecture he
concep inaugural
tion of centralized domed is also articulated in had delivered a decade earlier at the Insti
space Hungarian
Gluck's Die Kunst der Osmanen tute, now inflected with a more ethno
(1922)?an expanded pronounced
version of his "Turkische Dekorationskunst" racial It cites as new evidence for the Turk
essay, emphasis.59
which stresses the "national internationalism" ishness of Istanbul's an article
(1920), mosques published by
(nationalen Internationalisms) of Ottoman architec Aga-Oglu in 1926 "disproving" the influence of Hagia
ture and architectural decoration, along with the cos Sophia on the mosque of Mehmed II (1463-70), the
of Istanbul's court culture manifested first in a series of sultanic with
mopolitanism complexes culminating
to such as Gentile those built by Sinan. Gluck agrees with Aga-Oglu's
by invitations extended artists Bel
lini. to Gluck, Sinan's national school of assessment of this mosque as a direct descendant of
According
architecture, with its distinctive mode of decoration the indigenous Anatolian Seljuk and early Ottoman
in floral tile has an interna architectural traditions. Moreover, he now claims a
epitomized revetments,
tional dimension, for it fuses Eastern and Western tra Turkish ethnic origin for Sinan, citing another arti
ditions more than other school of Islamic archi cle published in 1926 by Aga-Oglu, "proving" that the
any
tecture.55 chief architect's was a Turk.60
grandfather
the simultaneously international and The interdisciplinary collaboration between Gluck
Emphasizing
and was cut short
national character of "Turkish art," Gluck's
publica Babinger by the controversy sparked
tions found an enthusiastic in article on Sinan's which chal
reception early repub by Aga-Oglu's ethnicity,
lican with its modernist mission to the lenged Babinger's to the unsubstantiated
Turkey, join subscription
cultural with its desire to view that the chief architect's father was a Greek named
European sphere coupled
Chris to (a name supposedly mentioned in the Quyuddt-i
preserve an individual identity, increasingly defined
in ethno-racial terms. Around Fuat Muhimme).61 based his own on an
1926-27, Kopriilu, Aga-Oglu argument
the leading nationalist historian of Turkic literature equally suspicious source, however?a
marginal
note
and culture, asked both Gluck and Strzygowski to con in a manuscript by Orfi Mahmud Agha (d. 1778), the
tribute articles on the of "Turkish art" to Tur Tarikh-i Edirne (History of Edirne), which happened
subject
to mention name
kiyatMecmuasi (a journal Koprulii published as the the Turkish of Sinan's
grandfather,
director of the Turcology Institute of Istanbul Uni who allegedly trained him in carpentry:
In those years, he also envisioned invit
versity).56 The talented Master Sinan Agha b. Abdulmennan, who
ing Gluck to teach at Istanbul University and send built the Selimiye Mosque in Edirne, was a
pious old
ing Turkish students to study with Strzygowski in man who lived more than a hundred years. Whenever he

160 GULRU NECIPOGLU
Turkish historians demonstrated that

subsequently
jlyjt^J*i Ju-< .jw>/
cJjUUI r .jj.j <*J-/j.;.
.-W*.jl-iZ-t J*b*?+ji.W ?*h? ?J*'J the note was indeed a
marginal forgery, perhaps per
owner of the
J*l l,i? jjjlii jVJ-Jj >.l >U y.j.^?- V
U>W j!j*iL ty oilO^r-l^-l^?*-'i^/v>t-*'^> petrated by the manuscript, the retired
-' *** ,x-^j8 iU^"1 doctor and amateur architectural historian

^ >ri ^ ***aiJil
>* Tosyavizade
JW??t/**?JtV^/,^.-tu
Rifat Osman Bey.64 Rifat Osman's 1927 article inMilli
Mecmua (NationalJournal), commemorating the 339th
anniversary of the death of the "Great Turk Mimar
Koca Sinan b. Abdiilmennan" mentions not the
only
note above but also the of
marginal quoted preface
another source in the same (a compos
manuscript
ite version of the chief architect's
autobiographies)
to which Sinan was not a convert (devsirme)
according
but instead came to Istanbul with his father, a scribe
in the retinue of an officer sent to recruit Christian
cadets from Rifat Osman out
Janissary Kayseri. points
that the information source
provided by the latter
is at odds with other versions of Sinan's
autobiogra
which refer to his Christian devsirme
phies, origin. Hop
new sources
ing that discovered in the future
might
resolve such evidence, he ridicules those
contradictory
who wish to invent a non-devsirme, Muslim for
identity
Sinan.65 The same article furthermore to
dj^ vt-
jX-tM
M v -^ ^c *-?'j^ *jv>V brings light
an "authentic" of the venerable chief archi
portrait
<^.^ .^-ilj ^j^j^Jg^. JVJ"J^' jVrl J> .J JUL.U'"^ 'LV :i^r*:^, "^ "^^
tect in old age, signed by the late artist Hasan Riza,
*>?> ^.. ,^,^ . ^, ;^ .3>^ ^ }i .
,^ ^.> ^j ^_ ^ ^ ^ ^^ ^ ^y ^._ ^ who is said to have copied it from an Italian engraving
*j;P l^y 4?^ J*~iJ?. CX^ */-^,r ^l-_.'o:_.- -. w-^.....j^<?.
_;,i .-->-- w.;,i_if!
...wu'J j^.^. uu ? <
.uijj .ji-;v-^>.._fv -Aii;r " *>-^-.> ??^-- -'^-' -J-.> made during the sitter's lifetime (fig. 13). This visual
^- ' to Cevdet's
)JU..-JU-; counterpart "verbal of Sinan is
portrait"
yet another manifestation of the obsession with the
persona of the beloved national architect.66

Rifat Osman dedicated his article to the recently
deceased Mimar Kemalettin a leader of the "First
Bey,
Fig. 13. Portrait of Sinan,by the artist Hasan Riza. (After
signed National Movement" in architecture, which
Rifat Osman rejected
Tosyavizade Bey, "Irtihalinin 339'uncu Sene-i
the eclectic revivalist style promoted by the Usui in
Devriyesi Miinasebetiyle Buyiik Tiirklerden Mimar Koca Sinan
favor of a more purist Turkish idiom inspired by
b. Abdulmennan," Milli Mecmua 7, 83 [1927]: 1339)
and Ottoman forms. An ardent admirer of
Seljuk
Sinan, Kemalettin not named one of his sons
only
came to Edirne, he would stay in the Mirmiran quarter,
after the chief architect but also wished to be buried
at the house of my grandfather Abdullah Agha, who
was next to him. As the director between 1909 and 1919
the Kethirda of the Old Palace. One night he drew the of constructions and restorations at the
Superinten
and calculations of the noble in
plans [Sokollu] mosque dency of Charitable Foundations (Evkaf Nezareti),
Liileburgaz. On that occasion, Master Sinan recounted to
Kemalettin trained a of architect-restorers
generation
how he received the tools of his trade in
(such as Sedat Qetintas,, Ali Saim Ulgen,
my grandfather and Ekrem
his youth from the workshop of his grandfather,
Togan Hakki who were the first to restore
Yusuf Agha, who was a master Ayverdi), among
carpenter."62 and prepare measured of Ottoman monu
drawings
Babinger's rebuttal in 1927 insisted on Sinan's identity ments and to write on national architecture.67 Emerg
as a Greek convert (devsirme) and the ing during the first decades of the twentieth century,
questioned
of the note above, written this tradition of architectural
authenticity marginal quoted indigenous historiogra
by
a
late-eighteenth-century author whose grandfather phy, much like the scholarship of art historians belong
could hardly have been a contemporary of the chief ing
to
Strzygowski's circle, was dominated
by formal
architect.63
analysis.68 It was largely the product of individuals

1 ^^ i ">^% %P f0 I
14. Map of Central Asia the place of origin and spread of the Turks. (After Celal Esad Arseven, Turk San'ati
Fig. showing
[Istanbul, 1928], 12, fig. 5)
trained as architects and artists, who elaborated on servile imitation of Persian, Arab, and art."70
Byzantine
the rationalist
paradigm
of the Usui with obser new Between 1920 and 1941, Arseven intermittently taught
vations based on the first-hand of national mon courses on architectural and urbanism at the
study history
uments, and was often fuelled critical to of Fine Arts, where he the concep
by responses Academy developed
the "detractors" of "Turkish art." tual framework of his second book, Turk San'ati (Turk
A pioneer of this native tradition of nationalist ishArt), published in 1928. This is the first survey by
historiography was Celal Esad (Arseven): a polymath a Turkish scholar to trace the eastern Turkic
origins
educated at the Academy of Fine Arts in Istanbul (fig. 14) of the art and architecture of "Turkey" (Tiir
(founded in 1883), where the Usui was being used as kiye), the shrunken territory
of the new nation-state.
a textbook.69 His de a Stamboul the of "Islamic art" as
Constantinople Byzance Criticizing European concept
(1909) is the earliest book by a Turkish author on the tantamount to
classifying
the whole Western tradition
and Ottoman monuments of the as "Christian art," Arseven once seeks to dis
Byzantine imperial again
capital: appended to it is a short biography of Sinan, prove the
presumption
that the Turks
merely copied
identified as the son of Christo. Its section on Otto "Arab, Persian, and art." He that it
Byzantine argues
man architecture, mostly
derived from the Usui, aims is a "national duty" to rectify the lack of recognition
to demonstrate the distinctive "national character" of of "Turkish art" and proposes the establishment of a
"Turkish art," which is "in considered a committee to the paucity of documentation.71

Europe falsely remedy

162 GULRU NECIPOGLU
Arseven cites the works of Gluck, Diez, vations, and ornament "rescued from
Strzygowski, exaggerated
and as models for future research on the forms." The distinctive characteristics of this
Aga-Oglu style?
"national" (milli)and "individual" (sahst) character of refinement, simplicity, rationality, sincerity, nobil
He illustrates with a none other ones
ity, and
"Turkish art."72 and map than the
adopts dignity?are high
(fig. 14) their paradigm of migrations that give rise lighted forty-fiveyears earlier in the imperial discourse
to artistic created the interac of the Usui as markers of proto-national iden
original syntheses by dynastic
tion of foreign and national artists under the patron are now recast as Turkish
tity; they qualities embody
age of Turkish dynasties. Nevertheless, he rejects the ing
a modernist
spirit awaiting reinvigoration
under
"exaggerated
role" attributed
by European
scholars theWesternizing Republic of Turkey.76
to
Byzantine
and Armenian elements in the Anato Criticizing the predominant focus of the Usui on
lian Seljuk synthesis and approvingly cites Aga-Oglu's mosques, Arseven draws attention to their multifunc
view that Hagia Sophia exerted no influence on the tional dependencies, which embody urban design
mosque of Mehmed II in Istanbul.73 Arseven's Turk principles, and to secular building types.He declares
San 'ati traces the evolution of "Turkish art" in three that the modern must invent an new,
age entirely
from ancient and medieval Asiatic to nonrevivalist art the national of
phases, origins inspired by "spirit"
the present. In his the latest Anatolian the which since the century, with
opinion, phase, past, eighteenth
the Seljuk and Ottoman con the infiltration of influences, has
encompassing periods, foreign European
stitutes a "continuous with Sinan's declined. Arseven's modernist discourse is
style" culminating steadily
masterpieces,
which are "without doubt" the
highest
built into his elaborate periodization of Ottoman
achievement of "Turkish art."74 architecture (slightly revised in the 1939 French edi
Arseven refers to Sinan as the "greatest
master of tion of his book, indicated in brackets), which cul
Turkish architecture," who perfects
the "classical style"
minates in the "New Turkey Period": he labels these
of the "Ottoman Turks" (a still-prevalent
denomina "Bursa Period, 1325-1480" ["Style de Brousse, 1325
tion that anachronistically
ethnicizes the Ottomans). 1501"]; "Classical Period, 1480-1603" ["Style classique,
He considers there to have been only
two unrivaled 1501-1616"]; "Renovation Period, 1603-1702" ["Style
architectural geniuses
of the sixteenth century, "Sinan
classique renove, 1616-1703"]; "Tulip Period, 1702
in the East" and "Michelangelo in theWest." He is the 30" ["Style Tulipe, 1703-30"]; "Baroque Period, 1730
first to use the term "classical
period"
for the zenith 1808" ["Style Baroque, 1730-1808"]; "Empire Period,
of Ottoman architecture, which achieves 1808-50" et 1808
"simplicity ["Style Empire pseudo-Renaissance,
and beauty" by passing previous foreign influences 84"]; and "Revivalist Period, 1850-1923" ["Style neo
a corrective "filter." Thanks to its harmonious 1875-1923"].77 This succession of
through classique, dynamic
volumetric and the subordination of its orna echoing
those of
Europe
and
integrated
massing period-styles,
ment to structural rationalism, the "purified"
classical with the evolutionary rhythms ofWestern civilization,
Ottoman synthesis is superior to the hybrid medieval stands in marked contrast to the essentialist frameworks
of Orientalist that denied modernity to

styleof theAnatolian Seljuks, which is characterized by publications
and an deco the "Islamic other." the Usui's rise-and
unseemly heavy proportions exaggerated By adapting
rative Arseven's with decline to the new context of the Turkish
emphasis. preoccupation "purifi paradigm
cation" echoes the general obsession of an entire Arseven to the progres
age Republic, attempts legitimize
in which late-nineteenth- and sive modernist of the nation-state on both the
early-twentieth-century agenda
nationalisms exalted ethnic/national (in such and the artistic front.78
purity political
realms as race, culture, and Arseven notes the dissemination of the
language, history, art) Although
as an ideal.75 Moreover, his view of the "classical in the Balkans and the Arab
ideological style" provinces
Seljuk period as a less developed precursor of theOtto of theOttoman Empire (and supposedly as far as India
man the essentialized "classical of Sinan's his book focuses on mon
era, within which age" by way students),
finds a direct
corollary
in nationalist uments within modern Turkey.79 The geographical
reigns supreme,
history writing in the early Turkish Republic.

In an spread and regional diversity of the Ottoman archi
expanded edition of his book Arseven later explains tectural heritage
over three continents would also be
that he chose the term "classical style" (kldsik uslub) distorted by the nationalist historiographies of other
because in Europe it denotes a "high style" based on nation-states (both Christian and Muslim) that had
rational to ele the unified territories;
principles consistently applied plans, partitioned empire's formerly

these new polities tended to delegitimize theOttoman

past by casting it as an artistically inferior period of
detested contrast, the Anato
foreign "occupation." By
lia-centered secular Republic of Turkey, founded on
the contracted heartlands of the with a rev
empire
olution that terminated the Ottoman stood
regime,
out as the modern nation-state to embrace the
only
architectural of the past: the "Rumi" of
legacy legacy
a multinational which now came to
dynastic empire,
be as "Anatolian Turkish."80
reconceptualized
With the inauguration in 1931 of the Turkish His
tory Society (Turk Tarih Kurumu), an institution cre
ated to construct a nationalist demon
historiography
"the service of the Turks to civilization," the
strating
of "Turkish art" moved to center of offi
subject stage
cial attention.81 In 1935, the director of the society,
Afet [Inan], proposed the publication of a monograph
on the national chief architect, and her was
proposal
approved by the founder of the Republic, Mustafa

Kemal [Ataturk], who wrote the instruction: "Make
Sinan's statue!" 15). Ataturk also his

(fig. expressed
desire that the Suleymaniye Mosque be restored and
its multifunctional transformed into a
dependencies
commemorative urban named "Sinan Sitesi"
complex Turk Tarihi Arafttrma Kurumana
after the chief architect. This desire would be realized Gazi M. Kemal Atatiirk'iin el yaxm.
the mosque was renovated and one of its
only partially:
madrasas converted into a
public manuscript library.
The statue, not until 1956, was
long-delayed sculpted
erected in front of the Ankara Univer
ceremonially
sity Faculty of Language and History-Geography dur Fig. 15. Ataturk's handwritten instruction to the Turkish History
ing
the four hundredth anniversary
of the inaugura Society, dated Aug. 2, 1935: "Make Sinan's statue!" (After Afet
tion of the Suleymaniye Mosque (fig. 16) .82 Inan, Mimar Koca Sinan [Ankara, 1956], frontispiece)
After Atatiirk's death in 1938, the Sinan monograph
failed to materialize due to the Second World War,
several out of the monuments of his students in India. The second
although publications eventually grew
it from the 1960s through the 1980s.83 Planned as a volume, on architectural history,
would be illustrated
two-volume work in French and Turkish, the book with specially prepared drawings and photographs; it
had been to an committee would feature on architecture as a fine art,
assigned interdisciplinary chapters
of historians, and architec the art-historical of Sinan's works, their com
prominent anthropologists, analysis
tural historians. Like the Usui, it was to to contemporary monuments of world archi
multilingual parison
be an official commissioned the state tecture, and their in Turkish and Euro
publication by interpretation
to address an audience both at home and abroad. The and would end with a
pean publications comprehensive
first volume, on historical would include sec
context, bibliography.84
tions on the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century
cultural A bilingual brochure published in 1937, on the
history of the Ottoman Empire, the Janissary institu occasion of the Second Congress of Turkish History,
tion, the ethnology of Muslim and Christian Turks included abstracts written by
the
respective supervisors
in Anatolia, the ethnic origin
of Sinan, his
private
of each volume, the historian Fuat Kopriilii and the
and life, the of his monuments, crit French architectural historian Albert-Louis Gabriel.85
public inventory
ical editions of his autobiographies and waqfiyyas, the Trained as an
architect-archaeologist, Gabriel taught
school of Sinan and architects trained by him, and in the Faculty of Letters of Istanbul University between

164 GULRU NECIPOGLU
16. Marble statue of Sinan, by Hiiseyin Ankay in 1956 (After Inan, Mimar Koca Sinan, pi. 4]
Fig. sculpted

' i?nn
I?i?i
1
TYPE C TYPE D
ppp nrni rrhn [Ffn

o?o kU LU
i ?3 I I?i
<?*oc/pjt a
1 I ,?I L|J
1 # [?
Type Groupe Qroupe
b c
\ E-
\-y-/
Fig. 2. TVP E F
Fig. 17. Typological chart of mosque plans. (After Albert Gabriel, "Les mosquees de Constantinople," Syria 7 [1926]: 362)
1926 and 1930 and subsequently served as the first with their "eminent place in global art history." His
director of the French Institute of Archaeology until masterpieces,
erected via a
sophisticated
centralized
1956. He was a trusted friend of Kopriilii and the cel "organization of labor," would be
presented
not
only
ebrated author of Monuments turcs d'Anatolie (1931 as the manifestations of a architect's extraor
single
34) ,86His abstract that the volume on archi talent but also as "the of the funda
explains dinary symbol
tectural
history
was to show how Sinan's works
embody mental characteristics of the Turks and their high
"national traditions and constitute an est The of Sinan's oeuvre would
integral part aspirations." analysis
of the Turkish patrimony." Despite the geographi thus bring to light a great achievement in the art of
cal of his works in the Balkans, Anatolia, and humankind, "not the of an
spread reflecting only genius
the would focus on Sinan's mas individual man, but also the eternal virtues and mer
Syria, monograph
terpieces in Edirne and particularly in Istanbul, with its of a nation."87
out monuments. The then, envisioned the chief archi
neglecting provincial Major mosque monograph,
were to be documented and tect's and national
complexes fully comple simultaneously global style (rep
mented by selected examples of other building types resenting the supreme embodiment of the merits of
such as madrasas, and a in the Usui) as a collective artistic
masjids, caravansarays, bridges, dynastic empire
fountains. (The absence from this list of Sinan's achievement of the Anatolian Turks. Gabriel had writ
pal
aces and kiosks was due to the of sur ten an article the same lines in
perhaps paucity along 1936, glorify
which enhanced the traditional focus Sinan as a "creative whose
viving examples, ing genius" masterpieces,
on monumental architecture.) The evolution the "Turkishwere far from pas
public imprinted by spirit,"
of the chief architect's to Ana
style would be traced tiches of Ten earlier, he had
Hagia Sophia. years
tolian Seljuk and early Ottoman prototypes in order detected in the chief architect's oeuvre an ethos com
to the character" of his works, to that of the rooted in
identify "original along parable European Renaissance,

166 GULRU NECIPOGLU
volumes, each to a different group of spe

assigned
cialists, echoes the division of labor Babinger had pre
envisioned for his own unrealized Sinan mono
viously
Such a to
graph. nonintegrated approach, relegating
historians the of texts as of back
study repositories
ground information, would largely be maintained by

future of formalist architectural histori
generations
ans, whose tool became that
b^b^b^k $Saî^J&#^BW^B^^B^^B^^?â^ *H^ttf' primary methodological
of style and typology.
abstract the purpose of the his
Kopriilu's explains
torical volume: to on the basis of written
analyze,
sources, the of labor and the
organization political,
cultural, and socio-economic contexts within which
"our national architecture and great national architect"
flourished. Sinan's biography would be derived from

his and other sources, repro
autobiographies primary
duced in an appendix (fig. 18). The planned inclu
sion of a section on the ethnology
of Anatolia signals
the official agenda of propagating Sinan's identity as
Slnan'in imzasi ve mfthrfi a Christian Turkish devsirmewho converted to Islam
upon being recruited as a Janissary cadet. In 1936 a
Bu Iclife
ulindan 4 defabiiyiitulmiistur. imza"El Fakir Sinan Ser -Mi'mdrdn t
Osttt-ki member of the historical committee, Ahmet Refik
ortastnda
Hdssa. dir;Miihiirun 'El-Fakirti HukirSinan. yaxihdir. subeyitvardir.
Kenarinda
,m:nuinrn
A/Mr mustmemi
hrmifr H,?drim:,A?,
ktmint
drrdmend
(Altinay), had published an imperial decree dating
to 1573, which recorded the Turkish names of some
La signatureet le cachet de Sinan
of Sinan's Christian relatives living in the villages of
Cc clicheest ajjr.indi;, I'cchc-llr
dc 4/1.Dans la signature
quon voiten haulon litla phrase:
"F.I-Fakir Sinan Srr.MCmattn
HakirSiwm.. Toutautour
-i -//?**?.;
on rematquc
au mn.rudu cachetil estecrit: 'El. Fakir'El
ces vers. Kayseri.90 At the 1937 Congress of Turkish History,
another member of the historical committee, Hasan
Mih, m.m.bun
A,,m>mCMmtn.l Hr,ul,i rnUkin
krmtn,
,Ur<tm*nJ
Fehmi Turgal, brought to light additional documents
showing the prevalence of Turkish names in the Chris
tian of Agirnas, in where, to
village Kayseri, according
Fig. 18. Sinan's signature and the imprint of his seal on an
archival sources, Sinan was born.91 The historian Rifki
archival document. (After Fuat Koprulu and Albert Gabriel,
Melul Meric, who had been appointed towrite Sinan's
=
Sinan, Hayati, Eserleri Sinan, sa vie, son oeuvre [Istanbul, 1937],
back biography for the historical volume, used these doc
cover)
uments in a 1938 article to support the view that the
chief architect was recruited from as a Chris
Agirnas
the of antique models from the past tian Turk. He demonstrated the unreli
reinterpretation convincingly
in "modern works."88 According
to Gabriel's abstract, ability of texts used (and almost certainly invented)
his
"rigorously
documented" volume, which would fea
by Cevdet and Osman Rifat to construct fictive biog
ture contributions of other architects-cum-architectural of Sinan. Nevertheless, Meric's own assertion
raphies
historians (S. Qetinta?, A. S. Ulgen, and S. H. Eldem), thatTurkish names were adopted only by the Christian
aimed to
disprove "prejudiced"
assessments
by
non Turks of the Kayseri region, and not by their Greek
based on "false Its architectural and Armenian was at best an unsubstanti
experts, postulates." neighbors,
to be with exactitude," ated The search for the controversial eth
drawings, prepared "scrupulous hypothesis.
would probably have featured comparative typologi nic
origin
of Sinan (whether Greek, Armenian, or
cal charts, like those included in Gabriel's 1926 arti Turkish) was largely a misguided exercise, given the
cle the of Istanbul's mosques, racial of the Ottoman state. The still-unre
classifying plan types pluralism
which initiated the taxonomical gaze of subsequent solved controversy is based on the
assumption
of an
studies (fig. 17).89 The clear-cut

separation
of his "ethnic purity" difficult to imagine in the intermixed
torical documentation and formal analysis
into two Greek, Armenian, and Christian Turkish populations

of the Kayseri region, whose shared naming practices phalic Turkish race" (Brakisefal Turk irki).95 In those
further the such architectural as Arkitekt, Mimar
complicate problem.92 years journals
The ongoing preoccupation with the Turkishness of hk, and Mimar continued to
regularly
commemorate
Sinan and of his style ismanifested in a fictionalized Sinan, on the anniversary of his death, as the role
biography of him written "in the manner of a histor model of modern successors the blood and
"bearing
ical novel" by Afet Inan, the director of the Turkish genius
of the master."96
History Society, who had initially conceived themono In their readings

of Sinan's architecture through
graph project. Even though Meric had proved the the lens ofmodernism, highlighting itsperfect balance
fabricated nature of documents "discovered" Cev between form and function with its "rational
by along
det and Rifat Osman, she indiscriminately uses them ism" and
"purism" transcending
decorative
impulses,
to embellish the childhood portrait of the national these professional journals would leave an
imprint
genius as a Christian Turk.93 She imagines in vivid on
subsequent scholarship. The
European professors
detail how Sinan's grandfather Dogan Yusuf Agha of architecture at the
Academy of Fine Arts in Istan
interrupts
his work on
carpentry and holds the new bul also inscribed the chief architect's works within
born baby in his arms, as his tears of joy fall and modernist narratives.97 For instance, a 1938 textbook
dry
on the infant's cheeks. Instead of
merely
con on global architectural history,Mimari Bilgisi (Knowl
structing chicken coops and fountains, little Sinan edge of Architecture), written by the German architect
absorbs artistic influences from the land Bruno Taut for the students of the presents
physical Academy,
of the Anatolian terrain, such as the a functionalist of Sinan's char
scape power interpretation style,
ful silhouette of Mount Erciyes, whose form he later acterizing it as achieving an ideal harmony between
mimics in themountainlike pyramidal massing of the proportional
form and rational construction. Taut
Suleymaniye Mosque (fig. 19). Another influence on regards Roman and

Byzantine architects as mere
engi
his style, constituting a geographically and ethnically neers in
comparison
to Sinan, who as a
genius
of the
defined Anatolian Turkish synthesis, is the cultural art of
proportion aestheticizes
engineering technique
landscape of Seljuk monuments in nearby Kayseri and both internally and externally in his domed mosques.
which
Konya, Sinan avidly
studies and sketches when Visually improved by soaring minarets, Hagia Sophia
ever his to their woodwork is a to the mosques of Sinan, under
grandfather goes repair only "prelude"
(fig. 20). On these occasions, the talented boy helps whom domed construction reaches the
highest degree
the old man, who in turn teaches him
history
lessons. of development and flexibility in world history.98
At the Karatay Khan, for instance, he tells Sinan: "This Sinan also
occupies
a
prominent position
in another
building
is a monument of our ancestors, the Seljuks. textbook for Turkish students, written by Ernst Diez
Like us
they, too, came from the east.
They settled soon after he founded (in 1943) the art history depart
here, built these monuments, and left them to us." ment of Istanbul where he courses
University, taught
As Sinan prepares to leave Agirnas for Istanbul with on Islamic and Turkish art. Translated into Turkish
his father Katip Abdiilmennan (the scribe of a Janis by his pupil Oktay Aslanapa (who had just received
sary recruitment officer), his kisses his a doctoral at the of Vienna), it
grandfather degree University
forehead and encourages him to build was in 1946 under the title Turk Sanati:
masterpieces published
that emulate monuments in the sultan's ser Gunumuze Kadar Art: From
Seljuk Baslangicmdan (Turkish
vice: "Our tribal ancestors came here in the to the Its laments
migrations. Beginning Present). preface
We our with our names
kept alive lineage and mother the lack of a
comprehensive survey comparable
to
tongue. Now most of these Turks are

accepting Arthur Upham Pope's A Survey ofPersian Art from Pre
the
religion of Islam and creating civilized works (medeni historic Times to thePresent (1938-39). Diez explains
eserler). I want to see you also as a person this that his own modest volume aims to the
serving supplement
race and the Turkish of "Turkish art," written Arse
being!"94 only existing survey by
In promoting its racial theories, the Turkish His ven, which had been reprinted in 1939 in a revised
tory Society
went so far as to exhume Sinan's
body French edition with new drawings, charts of typolog
from his tomb in 1935 tomeasure his skull. In 1944, ically classified mosque plans, and additional pho
the architect Bedri Ucar announced that Diez's textbook some of these
proudly tographs. reproduces
the Society's research had proven charts
anthropological (fig. 21) and supplements them with others.
Sinan's skull to be characteristic of the Like his Turkish he criticizes the mono
"brachyce predecessor,

168 GULRU NECIPOGLU
Erciye?'in Agirnas'tan giirunu?u

(Ressam Ahmed Ca/ije/ 1955)
Siilcyinaniyc'nin bu rrsiindekidi$ hatlariyle, Agrmas'tan Erciye?'in goruniijiindeki

durumdadir (Foto : Prof. Dr. Fazil Noyan)
silucti iljjiyi <;ekt*rck
Fig. 19. View of Mount Erciyes from the village of Agirnas, Sinan's birthplace, painted by Ahmed Cab?el in 1955, compared
to a the silhouette of the Suleymaniye (After Inan, Mimar Koca Sinan, frontispiece)
photograph showing Mosque.

23
tipli, planli ve muntazam yapilmis. bir bina manzumesi! Muhte?em
kapusu, Selguk mimari tislubunun baha bigilmez bir ba$ eseri idi.
Ddnu?te ati iizerinde giderken, hep ba?ini arkada kalan, bu yapi

sultietinin tarafindan ayiramiyordu
-
Sinan, bu Turk Seljuk abi
' " ''
desinden . . .
gok hosjandi. Isjeri _?.. v
bitip gitmek zamani gelince, o- wi?amk

'' i^^Hâ^^W^'*K8
radan aynlmak istemeyen bir "^y. ''*
4J?y^2?TI????'
da^lte J^^^^Sk-'.
"
<aaPsJ'&m-
b^b^bHb^** ^^SbIb^^H^H âVB^JaHflBK^nAl^^
e^b^b@^bB9b^b^j^MIb^^^b^b^b^B^b^bI
X^^BE^^^BBiSt^^^^^^TTO? ^RhjW*HHBi
HbbHb^B^bHb^^^^^b^bHb^b^bH ' 'r^*" r?r MCr' iiiiMi'''^^Ji -*jS*E*<-~ J*y ^MmH
^b^SbK^b^K^'iTîB^H^HaH
?a^B??l^K?B^B^Bfatf^^^?B^H&B^B^H^H tEi^fvl^V-^^^
.iTamT^ .jL ^TTfjt.r
~~*
^^^"^.i^ v\jg/-*î^
>**LWf*j*jf?*Zs*-^^r&rM"<r'&^Jt
>Tll(V'
'-^ "7/*
(a^BK^B^BnB^B^B^BW^Îi^B^HB^B^H^BB r^Rr 4*V. "^T*n"' -.^v:
/Iksarai/, Koni/a "Su/tan Ha?i" A/csarai/, Ko?ij/a "SiJtau Han"

KcrvansaraytniTi icfen goninu*ii.
fcervansarayi fcapusu.
(B. y. V. Mudurlugii
ar?ivinden.)
Fig. 20. Photographs of the Sultan Khan in Aksaray, (After Inan, Mimar Koca Sinan, 23)
Konya.
lithic term "Islamic art" and traces the evolution of World War, he a race-based defini
explicitly rejects
the Turkish "national style" (milli ilslup) in architec tion of "national and sultanic
style" regards mosques
ture and the arts from ancient Asiatic tribal built after the of as "the
origins conquest Constantinople
to the present, focusing primarily on the Anatolian children of Hagia It is the adoption of this
Sophia."
Seljuk and Ottoman periods.99 monument
by
the sultans as a
"symbol of
imperial
Unlike Arseven, however, Diez (who was initially rule" that
engenders
a renaissance in the Golden
trained as a Byzantinist before turning to the study Horn, born from the eastern Roman architectural
of Islamic art) aims to integrate the Turkish artis tradition and characterized an innovative
by concep
tic tradition within a more universal Mediterranean tion of space and light that represents the last step in
perspective. In his book, written during the Second the evolution of Islamic mosque architecture. Elabo

170 GULRU NECIPOGLU
&*& 1M
Jyp|
t yj^lkWM _____ n in. ,n
-&
.^K L Jl 7
h_fil Iq_9 I -?-I
3_*
Fig. 21. Typological chart of Ottoman mosque plans by Arseven. (Reproduced in Ernst Diez, Turk Sanati [Istanbul, 1946],
169, fig. 123)
on the "Turkish Renaissance" initi tect's as variations of

rating paradigm mosques square, hexagonal,
ated by Gurlitt and further developed by Gluck (with and
octagonal support systems.102
He observes that
whom, in 1925, he had coauthered Die Kunst des Islam the "classical
style"
of the school of Sinan, "a term
in the series), Diez argues used Turkish scholars," with six
Propylaen Kunstgeschichte by presents parallels
that the Ottomans, whose that Italian Renaissance architecture, even
empire approximated teenth-century
of the Romans, needed "architectural artistic with the West were not as
representa though exchanges
tion" on a monumental scale, unlike their Anatolian at that time as in later This is an allu
strong periods.
who were content to build rela sion to the term kldsik uslub, coined who
Seljuk predecessors, by Arseven,
small structures. In his view, the "state wrote that the school of Sinan was "an
tively imperial entirely sepa
architecture" of the Ottomans is not purely Turkish rate movement from the
European Renaissance, for
but rather a creative synthesis of Byzantine, Iranian, art in Turkey had not yet submitted itself to any for
and Islamic traditions.100 eign influence." Unlike his Turkish colleague, Diez
to Sinan asthe Turkish archi the shared roots of Ottoman and Italian
Referring "greatest emphasizes
tect," Diez accepts the "evidence" Renaissance architecture in the Roman tradi
presented by Aga imperial
the chief architect's ethnic as tion and attributes their similarities to a
Oglu concerning origin "period style"
a Turk (although in a later article, published after he (Zeitstil) mediating between "East and West."103
left he states that Sinan was either Greek or out that Ottoman architects with
Turkey, Pointing "gazed
Armenian, but more Armenian).101 Like Gur one to and the other to
likely eye Hagia Sophia eye Europe,"
litt,Diez classifies the plan types of the chief archi Diez ranks the
perfectly centralized early-seventeenth

CREATION OF A NATIONAL GENIUS 1 7 1
century Sultan Ahmed Mosque,

built by
a student of to the Uc ?erefeli Mosque (commissioned byMehmed
Sinan in a
style comparable
to the
"European Baroque," IPs father prior to the encounter with Hagia Sophia)
above all other sultanic in Istanbul. as one of the of "classical
Sinan's
mosques Despite precursors style,"
the innovations of this mosque, however, he observes which reaches its climax with the a master
Selimiye,
that Sinan's successors his until that "overshadows all monuments in the world,
perpetuated legacy piece
the mid-seventeenth when reactions to his the Pantheon and St. Peter's in Rome."107
century, including
"serious the to detrimental Euro The about "influence" and the
style" opened gate continuing anxiety
pean influences manifested in the hybrid works of preoccupation
with Turkishness, however, hindered
non-Turkish architects Greek, and Arme further research on intercultural and artistic
(Italian, exchanges
nian), which hastened the demise of "national archi with The intentional cross-references of
parallels Italy.
tecture." Admitting that he has not visited the Selimiye Sinan's sultanic tomosques
Hagia Sophia
also resisted
in Edirne due to the war, Diez states his for The correctness of
preference in-depth analysis.
stifling political
the effect of the Sultan Ahmed over nationalist discourses
had the effect of marginalizing
spatial Mosque
that of or the Suleymaniye, an effect the architectural of the "lands of Rum," situ
Hagia Sophia history
that to him demonstrates the of a central ated at the crossroads of and Asia, as a nar
superiority Europe
ized plan with four half domes over a layout with only rowly circumscribed field increasingly dominated by
two half domes (fig. 22).104 This judgment subverts native scholars. Whether conceptualized
as an Anato
the dominant view that the "classical of Sinan's lian Turkish confined to the territorial bor
style" synthesis
in the ders of the nation-state, or as a
mosques, reaching perfection Selimiye, repre pan-Turkic synthesis
sents the achievement of Ottoman architec rooted in distant Asiatic the "classical
highest origins, style"
ture. Diez was so criticized Turkish schol of Sinan was often framed within narratives
heavily by separatist
ars for foregrounding the influence of Hagia Sophia of architectural nationalism.108
and the Armenian and The need to demonstrate the national character
emphasizing Byzantine ingre
dients of Anatolian Seljuk architecture that he left for of "Turkish art" is reiterated in Arseven's three-vol
Vienna in 1948.105 ume Turk Sanati Tarihi: Menseinden Kadar (His
Bugilne
The revised and
expanded
edition of his book, pre tory of Turkish Art: From ItsOrigins to the Present),
pared in 1955 by Aslanapa (now the coauthor), omits published in fascicules between 1954 and 1959 as an
controversial such as those the version of his 1939 L'art Turc. The
passages espousing expanded preface
Turkish ethnic
origin
of Sinan and
characterizing
sul announces the foundation in 1951 of the Institute of
tanic mosques as the "children of
Hagia Sophia"
and Turkish Art History at the Fine Arts Academy to fur
more stresses Italian Renaissance ther cultivate this undervalued field. The first two vol
emphatically paral
lels. The new edition includes additional sections on umes, on architecture and architectural ornament,
the Karamanid principality (based on a book Diez are once
again dominated
by
the Ottoman
period.109
coauthored with Aslanapa and Koman in 1950) and Arseven revises his former
periodization by giving
an
other monuments from the that dia even more to the "classical
Beylik period prominent position style"
chronically bridge the Seljuk and Ottoman periods. (now dated between 1501 and 1703) codified by Sinan.
The monuments of Western Anatolia, He no the Sultan Ahmed as
Beylik-period longer regards Mosque
with their new on
space, motifs the initiator of the "renovation instead, it
emphasis classicizing period";
local ruins, and Italianate fea a less successful continuation of Sinan's
inspired by antique represents
tures disseminated are seen as hav
by trade relations, style,
which
impresses Europeans
thanks to its dec
initiated a "renaissance" that orative exuberance an allusion to Diez's
ing fourteenth-century (apparently
constitutes yet another trans-Mediterranean for the character of
"period professed preference "Baroque"
On the other hand, the this
style."106 fifteenth-century mosque).110
mosque of Mehmed II, now identified as the first mon Arseven censures Diez's definition of sultanic
umental structure after is mosques as the "children of and his
central-plan Hagia Sophia, Hagia Sophia"
credited with in Istanbul a "renaissance assessment of the as "untenable
launching negative Suleymaniye
of
antique architecture"
parallel
to that of Rome. Si views regrettably included in a textbook that instills
nan's built domed Turkish an
subsequently central-plan mosques youth with inferiority complex."
He states
are likewise to in Rome that Sinan did not "imitate" but rather
compared projects developed Hagia Sophia,
for St. Peter's. The section on Edirne refers "corrected and its errors and
expanded improved shortcomings"

172 GULRU NECIPOGLU
|Zaf4*< JW?;?.? ??
mU m \WWk ? IB? aw Naf[1| I
"ITT::;;-:;; nwmwn; ;.;v;;T~ TnOO(1T
,
M^ )u)i;m_K 4l? i1* J^,-..--_..-_..-
kJipOOOL
li_
...~.^ri.^.~j|
r
Istanbul, Ayasofya Camii Istanbul, Suleymaniye Caraii
Istanbul, Yeni Valide camii istanbul, Sultan Ahmet camii
(?ekil : 138)
Fig. 22. Typological chart comparing the plans of the Ayasofya, Suleymaniye, Yeni Valide, and Sultan Ahmed mosques in
Istanbul. (After Ernst Diez, Turk Sanati [Istanbul, 1946], 196, fig. 138)

in that the internal evolution of architecture" in their of

masterpieces brought original "conception space."
Turkish architecture to its highest point of maturity. Distancing himself from discourses on the origins of
Nor was Sinan influenced by the European Renaissance the "classical
style"
of Ottoman architecture, he crit
manner, which infiltrated the national tradition icizes both the biases of Western scholars (who con
only
of architecture after the "In the sider this an imitation of Hagia consti
eighteenth century: style Sophia,
meantime, Turkish architecture evolved to its an inferior branch of Islamic architecture) and
according tuting
own character, traditions in Ana the chauvinism of nationalist that insist on
following developed paradigms
tolia" and some ideas inspired by the dome of Hagia tracing its roots to ancient Asiatic sources. He con
Sophia. Accepting the official view of Sinan's origin tends that one must first understand the nature of the
as a Christian Turk, Arseven that his architec and "Ottoman-Turkish" architecture
argues "Seljuk-Turkish"
tural could not have soared to such of Anatolia before to search for distant ori
genius heights attempting
without the contributions of his
predecessors
and tal
gins in the East.115 Kuban's preference for defining the
ented assistants, whom he directed in the manner of "character" of the classical Ottoman as an Ana
style
an "orchestra conductor."111 Like the unrealized mono tolian Turkish synthesis stamped by an early modern
graph commissioned by the Turkish History Society, Mediterranean
spirit
is nevertheless
implicitly embed
Arseven's revised book Sinan's oeuvre as an ded in a discourse of national His
represents identity. compar
embodiment of national values that the Turks should ison between Ottoman and Italian Renaissance reli
be of: a collective achievement the monuments aims to their differences
proud reflecting gious highlight
"highly refined aesthetic sensibilities" of the society rather than the parallels attributed by Diez to a Zeitstil
in which the chief architect flourished.112 shared across the Mediterranean. These differences,
The 1950s marked the emergence of specialized according
to Kuban, underscore the separate identity
architectural history books that initiated a break of classical Ottoman architecture as an
independent
between architecture and the arts; this that, to Diez's
dichotomy regional-geographical synthesis contrary
thereafter became normative in most The view, is not "influenced"
surveys.113 by Europe.116
earliest on the chief architect, Sinan: Der on the
monograph Focusing contemporaneous development
Baumeister osmanischer Glanzzeit, was in 1954 of domed monu
published light-filled, central-plan religious
by the Vienna-trained Swiss architect a for Ernst ments in Renaissance Italy and the Ottoman
Egli, Empire,
mer of the of Fine Arts. Kuban's of inner
professor Academy Tracing comparative analysis space highlights
the Turkish character of Sinan's the of Sinan's with their hemi
specifically mosques uniqueness mosques,
to the cube-and-dome combination in Anatolian on
Seljuk spherical superstructures resting square, hexago
architecture, argues that came less nal, and and their rational
Egli "Hagia Sophia octagonal support systems
as a revelation than as an incentive for further effort." construction the role of ornament.
system minimizing
Commenting on the futility of the debate on ethnic Kuban argues that since the Italian Renaissance and
origin, he Sinan's works within the Turkish the Ottoman architectural traditions both
positions synthesize
Islamic cultural
sphere,
for "no one can
deny
that he diverse influences (including Byzantine and medieval
prototypes), each synthesis must be judged positively
grew in Turkish or that his career
up surroundings,
was confined to the Turkish-Ottoman and Islamic on its own terms. His thus vindi
comparative strategy
worlds."114 cates the original character of Ottoman archi
religious
Another monograph, published in 1958, is Dogan tecture
by giving
a new twist to the rationalist para
Kuban's Osmanh Dini Mimarisinde IcMekdn Tesekkulu: digm
of the Usui, embraced in Arseven's definition of
Ronesansla birMukayese of Inner in the "classical
(Formation Space style." Kuban's Turkification and Ana
Ottoman Religious Architecture: A with tolianization of the Ottoman architectural
Comparison synthesis
the Renaissance). Kuban, who was trained as an archi is further crystallized in a 1967 article titled "Mimar
tect at Istanbul Technical
University (where he subse Sinan and the Classical Period of Turkish Architec
became a renowned and the chair ture," which the chief architect as the
quently professor portrays "symbol
of Architectural History and Restoration) of the classical period of Anatolian Turkish architec
explains
in his that he an method" ture" and a "central issue of national culture." Aim
preface adopts "empirical
of formal comparison to demonstrate the distinctive ing to show how Sinan "combined a national synthe
character of Ottoman mosques, which
depart from sis with a universal world view" that bridged Asia and
the decorative of Islamic this seminal article sets the tone for Kuban's
"predominantly approach Europe,

174 GULRU NECIPOGLU
future on the chief architect, which Soliman et Tarchitecture ottomane (1985), which, after
monographs reject
biased Western interpretive frameworks in favor of an
briefly tracing the evolution of Seljuk and early Otto
method of formal man architecture, focuses on the of
"empirical" analysis.117 primarily "style
Sinan." It ends with a on the of
chapter "apotheosis
the which represents the "affirmation of an
Selimiye,"
CANONIZATION OF SINAN IN THE SECOND entirely Turkish style"
and constitutes a
masterpiece
FIALF OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY that "comes closer to the monuments of the Italian
Renaissance than to those of classical
Byzantium."122
After the 1950s the linear evolution of national archi Commemorating the 400th anniversary of the chief
tecture from the Seljuk and Beylik periods through architect's death, Aptullah Kuran's 1986 Mimar Sinan
the Ottoman period
became normative in surveys of (translated in 1987 as Sinan: The Grand Old Master of
Turkish art and architecture, which canonized Sin Ottoman Architecture) is the first scholarly monograph
an's "classical as the of artistic to a
style" undisputed apex present chronologically
organized stylistic analysis
achievement in the "lands of Rum," whose focal of Sinan's oeuvre, to which
is appended a of
point catalogue
was modern Dedicated to Albert "the his complete works as listed in the
Turkey. Gabriel, autobiographies.123
great friend of Turkey and eminent historian of its

The late 1980s and 1990s also saw an
unprecedented
art," Suut Kemal Yetkin's L 'architecture en boom in the of and confer
turque turquie publication monographs
(1962) is one of the surveys in which the tripartite ence

proceedings
on the chief architect, which raised
is naturalized as Sinan scholarship to a sophisticated level of formal

periodization Seljuk-Beylik-Ottoman
a diachronic with analysis that muted earlier ideological controversies.124
ideological, uninterrupted sequence,
its discontinuities, and external connections The sterilized narratives of these studies have tended
ruptures,
masked. As Robert to old information in new without
deliberately Brunschvig's preface recycle guises,
this sequential which refers fresh Often con
aptly notes, scheme, rarely advancing interpretive perspectives.
to with other and nearly denies "for on canonical and
parallels regions centrating "masterpieces" adopting
influences," contributes to the of a linear model of stylistic evolution perfected in the
eign homogeneity
the subject, constituting
an
"orthogenetic"
evolution centralized plan of the Selimiye mosque, they gen
with "ethnic and determinants.118 overlook Sinan's with varied
geographic" erally experimentation
Aslanapa's Turkish Art and Architecture (1971), pub spatial concepts and minimize the aesthetic role that
lished soon after he founded the chair of Turkish and his

autobiographies assign
to ornament and epigra
Islamic Art at Istanbul University in 1963, inserts the phy.
Kuban even goes
so far as
to argue that "deco
same scheme within a broader Islamic ration had no influence on the architec
tripartite geogra absolutely
other "Turkish" tural of Sinan, whose "reflects a
phy encompassing dynasties (Karakha design" style purism
Ghaznavid, Great Tulunid, Mam that is not to be seen in until the twentieth
nid, Seljuk, Zengid, Europe
luk) :a gaze that from his teacher century."125
pan-Turkic departs
Diez's of Renaissance Perpetuating formalist methodologies launched by
legacy emphasizing European
Ottoman the founding figures of the field of "Turkish art," these
parallels.119 Godfrey Goodwin's A History of
Architecture (1971), on the other hand, adopts the books are
only rarely
informed by text-based research
Usui's of evolution and as interest in

paradigm dynastic by inscribing interdisciplinary approaches.126 Just
the "classical within a scheme of rise Sinan has faded among historians, monographs by
style" biological
and-decline in which Sinan's works the architectural historians have remained out
occupy high generally
est The chief architect also forms the central of touch with new empirical and theoretical devel
point.120
focus of a 1975 multi-author survey, TurkMimarisinin opments in the field of Ottoman history, where for
of Turk some constructs as the
Gelisimi veMimar Sinan (The Development quite
time such essentialized
ish Architecture and the Architect Sinan), edited by rise-and-decline and the "classical have
paradigm age"
Metin Sozen, which subdivides the "architecture of been critically scrutinized. With a few exceptions, these
into three and Sinan's works as self-referential
Turkey" periods: Pre-Sinan, Sinan, monographs interpret
Post-Sinan.121 manifestations of his creative down the
genius, playing
The of the chief architect to interna of his with the historical, socio
graduation agency patrons along
fame was of and aesthetic
by the emergence
tional lavishly political, economic, religious, cultural,
signaled
illustrated coffee-table books, such as Henri Stierlin's contexts in which the individualized programs and

sance: Cultural
codes of his "classical style"
came into
being.127 Exchanges with theEast (London, 2005).
4. Spiro Kostof, A History ofArchitecture: Settings and Rituals (New
As noted in recent revisionist of Ottoman
critiques York and Oxford, 1985), 453-83. The most recent exception
architectural the between
historiography, disjunction is a survey that integrates Islamic monuments from different
architecture and has facilitated the within chronologically ordered
history appropri periods synchronic chapters
a "timeline" model: see Francis D. K.
ation and instrumentalization of Sinan's
legacy
for following Ching, Mark
different When considered as of an M. Jarzombek, and Vikramaditya Prakash, A Global History of
purposes.128 part
Architecture (New Jersey, 2007). The Ottoman Empire is repre
international Islamic visual tradition, the chief archi
sented here (437-40, 529-31) with selected buildings (includ
tect's oeuvre has once been admired for its for
again ing the Suleymaniye complex, built by Sinan), grouped in
mal and varied domed spaces tran two chapters on the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. For
qualities inventively
scending the specificities of meaning negotiated in the standard classification of "Islamic Art" under "The Mid
dle Ages," often following "Early Christian and Byzantine
contexts, whether from a secu
particular interpreted
Art," see H. W. Janson, History ofArt (Englewood Cliffs, NJ,
lar or as a timeless of
perspective spiritual expression and New York, 1973), 185-94; Horst de la Croix, Richard G.
God's oneness The abstraction of Sinan's
(tawhid).129 Tansey, and Diane Kirkpatrick, Gardner's Art through theAges,
works into an autonomous of 2 vols. Frederick Hartt, Art: A
evolution style and plan (New York, 1991), 1:354-77;
types has thus lent itself equally well to diverse visions History of Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, 2 vols. (New York,
of universalism, divorced from context. 1976), 1:280-92.

Nevertheless,
5. Cited from the ninth edition of Sir Banister Fletcher, A His
the echoes of Orientalist and nationalist par
lingering tory of Architecture on the Comparative Method (New York and
have continued to beneath the innoc
adigms persist London, 1924), 784.
uous veneer of formal 6. Hartt, Art: A History ofPainting, Sculpture, Architecture (1976),
autonomy.
1:280, 288. The revised fourth edition of Hartt's survey omits
the quoted passage and explains that the "Ottoman Turks"
Aga Khan Programfor Islamic Architecture, were not "overwhelmed" their "archi
by Hagia Sophia because
Department ofHistory ofArt and Architecture tectural code" was firmly established when they conquered
Harvard Sinan is now identified as a
University Constantinople. "genius" who
carries "Ottoman architecture to the height of its classical
See idem, Art: A History ofPainting,
period." Sculpture, Archi
tecture,2 vols. (New York, 1993), 1:309-11. The emulation of
NOTES in Renaissance
Hagia Sophia Italy is discussed in Necipoglu,
Age of Sinan, 88-92.
1. For the "Rumi" see Cemal Kafadar's
identity of the Ottomans, 7. James Fergusson, The Illustrated Handbook ofArchitecture, 2 vols.
essay in this volume and Tulay Artan, "Questions of Ottoman (London, 1855), 1:464, cited in Stephen Vernoit, "Islamic
Identity and Architectural History," inRethinking Architectural Art and Architecture: An Overview of Scholarship and Col
Historiography, ed. Dana Arnold, Elvan Altan Ergut, and Bel lecting,
c. 1850-1950," in Stephen Vernoit, ed., Discovering
gin Turan Ozkaya (London and New York, 2006), 85-109. Islamic Art: Scholars, Collectors and Collections (London and
2. Sinan's conscious dialogues with early Ottoman, Byzantine, New York, 2000), 6-7. Thanks to their racial
Indo-European
and Italian Renaissance architecture are discussed in Giilru art were ranked above
origin, "Persian" and "Indian" that
Necipoglu, "Challenging the Past: Sinan and the Competi of the "Semitic Arabs" and "Turks." For the denial of the
tive Discourse of Early Modern Islamic Architecture," Muqar "Turks'" artistic sensibility colored based
by "Turkophobia"
nas 10 (1993): idem, The Age of Sinan: Architectural on Enlightenment see the
169-80; critiques of "Oriental despotism,"
Culture in theOttoman Empire (London and Princeton, 2005), essays of Remi Labrusse in the forthcoming Louvre Museum
esp. 77-103, 135-47. exhibition catalogue Purs decors1?Arts de l'islam dans les collec
3. For revisionist attempts to "re-orient" Renaissance visual tions des Arts Decoratifs (Paris, 2007).
culture by exploring its global interactions with the Islamic 8. It is beyond the purview of this paper to consider the impli
lands and the New World, see Claire cations of new interpretive horizons and revisionist criti
Farago, ed., Reframing
theRenaissance: Visual Culture in Europe and Latin America, cal perspectives that have recently begun to emerge in this
1450-1650 (New Haven and London, 1995); Lisa Jardine, unusually fertile field. For new critical perspectives on the
Worldly Goods: A New History of theRenaissance (London and historiography of Ottoman architecture, see Artan,
"Ques
New York, 1996); Lisa Jardine and Jerry Brotton, Global Inter tions of Ottoman Identity," 85-109, and the proceedings
ests: Renaissance Art between East and West (London, 1996); of a conference on the
seven-century-long "supranational
Deborah Howard, Venice and theEast: The Impact of the Islamic heritage" of Ottoman architecture, which expose the limi
World on Venetian Architecture 1100-1500 (New Haven, 2000); tations of Orientalist and
nationalist Nur Akin,
paradigms:
idem, "Venice between East and West: Marc'Antonio Barbaro Afife Batur, and Selcuk
Batur, eds., Osmanh Mimarhgimn 7
and Palladio's Church of the Redento re, "Journal of the Soci Yiizyih "Uluslarustu Bir Mir as" (Istanbul, 1999).
ety ofArchitectural Historians 62, 3 (2003): 306-25; Jerry Brot 9. Marie de Launay, Pietro Montani, et al., Usul-i Mimarl-i
ton, The Renaissance Bazaar: From theSilk Road to
Michelangelo cOsmanl = L 'architecture Ottomane = Die ottomanische Baukunst
(Oxford, 2002); Gerald MacLean, ed., Re-Orienting theRenais (Istanbul, 1873). For this text and its authors, see Ahmet

176 GULRU NECIPOGLU
Ersoy's essay in this volume and his dissertation, "On the to theEighteenth, trans. J. I. Erythrapis (London, 1983); Marie
Sources of the 'Ottoman Renaissance': Architectural Revival de Launay et al., Usui, vii.
and Its Discourse the Abdulaziz Era (1861-76)" (PhD 23. Marie de Launay et al., Usui, 6, 11a. Later publications (dis
During
diss., Harvard University, 2000). Nineteenth-century theories cussed below) that repeat this unsubstantiated claim include
linking styles with racial or national characteristics are dis Ahmet Cevdet, ed., Tezkiretu'l-Bunyan (Istanbul, 1315/1897),
cussed in Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, Toward a Geography 13. Seemingly noting the chronological discrepancy, Franz
ofArt (Chicago and London, 2004), 36-58. Babinger writes (without citing a source): "Yusuf, his [Si
10. The French version of the Usui
often substitutes "turque" nan's] favorite pupil, is said to have been the architect of the
for "ottomane." early Ottoman
The architecture of Bursa is palaces in Lahore, Delhi, and Agra, which were built by the
identified as "Turkish" in Leon Parvillee, Architecture et deco see his entry in Encyclopedia of Islam, 1st ed.
Emperor Akbar":
ration turques au XVe siecle (Paris, 1874). (henceforth Ell) (Leiden, 1927), s.v. "Sinan." Chaghtai iden
11. Cited from the second edition of thiswork: see Charles Texier, tifies the architect of the Taj Mahal as Ustad Ahmed, the son
Asie Mineure: Description geographique, historique et archeologique of Sinan's pupil Mimar Mehmed Yusuf; he also states that
(Paris, 1862), 125. For the French discourse on the decline Mimar Mehmed Yusuf built the fort of Shahpur at Gulbarga
of "Arab art" in Egypt under "Turkish rule" see Heghnar (Deccan) in 1555: see Muhammad A. Chaghtai, Le Tadj Mahal
Zeitlian Watenpaugh's essay in this volume. d'Agra (Brussels 1938), 122, 146, cited in Suut Kemal Yetkin,
12. These two monuments are the royal mosque of Turk Mimarisi (Ankara, 1970), 198.
complexes
Mihrumah Sultan and Nurbanu Sultan [Atik Valide] in Uskii 24. For Marie de Launay's education and his measured drawings
dar: see Texier, Asie Mineure, 79, 126. of the Selimiye Mosque in Edirne, published in the Usui, see
a
13. Charles Edmond, L'Egypte TExposition universelle de 1867 Ersoy, "On the Sources of the 'Ottoman Renaissance,'" 160,
(Paris, 1867), 183; discussed in Zeynep Qelik, Displaying the n. 87.
Orient: Architecture of Islam at Nineteenth-Century World's Fairs 25. Marie de Launay et al. Usui, 3-7, 66a. The decline begins
(Berkeley, 1992), 37-39. with the arrival of French engineers, sculptors, and decora
14. The section on antiquity was written by the Egyptologist tors during the reign of Ahmed III (1703-30) and contin
that on the middle ues with the Europeanizing works of the Armenian archi
Auguste Mariette (Mariette-Bey), ages by
the historian and archaeologist Charles Edmond, and that on tect "Rafael" and his students. For the decline discourse, see
The medi Hamadeh's in this volume.
the modern period by Figari-Bey and J. Claude. Shirine essay
Marie de Launay et al., Usui, 12, 14.
evalization of the Islamic architectural heritage of Cairo is 26.
in Nezar AlSayyad, Irene A. Bierman, and Nasser 27. Ibid., 12-14. Montani is credited with the discovery that Otto
analyzed
Cairo Medieval man architects, "like the architects of antiquity," employed a
Rabbat, eds., Making (Lanham, MD, 2005);
system of modules to establish the proportions of their edi
also see Watenpaugh's essay in this volume.
a fices, a system already observed in the Ye?il Cami of Bursa
15. Edmond, L'Egypte TExposition universelle de 1867, 203-5.
16. Ibid., 10, 182. before the sixteenth-century invention of orders in Istanbul:
17. Ibid., 200-201. ibid., 26a. Especially from the 1830s onwards, theWesterniz
18. Salaheddin Bey, La Turquie
a
TExposition universelle de 1867 ing Ottomans, hoping to get themselves accepted and creden
in Celik, Displaying the Orient, 39 tialed as Europeans, to represent their cultural iden
(Paris, 1867), discussed began
40. This catalogue, attributed to Salaheddin tity as parallel to yet distinct from those of modern Western
generally Bey,
nations: Halil Berktay, "Between the First and the
was actually authored by Marie de Launay, who later wrote European
the historical overview of the evolution of Ottoman archi Third Divisions: Ottoman Late Imperial and Modern Turk
tecture in the Usui: see Ersoy, "On the Sources of the 'Otto ish Nationalist Reactions to the Possibility of Relegation," a
man Renaissance,'" 164; Edmond, L'Egypte
a TExposition uni paper read at a Central European University (CEU) confer
verselle de 1867, 176-77. ence titled "Europe's Symbolic Geographies," Budapest, May
19. Edmond, a TExposition universelle de 1867, 176-80. 28-29, 2004.
L'Egypte
20. Ibid., 144, 180. 28. Mimar Kemalettin's 1906 essay, titled "Micmari-i Islam" (Archi
a tecture of Islam), asserts that the Usui should be banned from
21. Salaheddin Bey, La Turquie TExposition universelle de 1867,
30. The Ottoman exhibits in Paris included plans and eleva use as a texbook in architecture schools because its leading
theorist, Montani Efendi, derived the Ottoman orders from
tions of the principal mosques of Istanbul (by Pietro Mon
and of Bursa Bontcha): ibid., 139. It was Montani treatise. Kemalettin criticizes the use of both of these
tani) (by Vignola's
who subsequently wrote the section in the Usui on the fun illustrated texts in the education of architects, to whom he
damental of Ottoman architecture. recommends the first-hand examination of national monu

principles
22. Prisse d'Avennes's 1877 book, for example, aimed to trace ments and their decoration. Celal Esad Arseven also opposed
the "formation, flowering, and decay of Muslim civilization the use of the Usui as a textbook: see Ilhan Tekeli and Selim
in Cairo" up to the arrival of the French armies who rescued Ilkin, Mimar Kemalettin'in Yazdiklan (Ankara, 1997), 17, 25
the Arabs from Ottoman rule, "an epoch during which artis 26, 72-73.
tic inspiration was all but extinguished under the Turkish 29. The French text identifies the "caractere of Otto
principal"
works of merit reflected man monuments as "severite noble," translated into Turk
yoke" and whose few architectural
"the supreme protest of Arab genius against barbarism." See ish as "austere (mehib) grace iletdfet)." To avoid monotony,
Achille-Constant-Theodore-Emile Prisse d'Avennes, Arab Art Sinan was "sober" in his use of tile revetments produced in
Iznik; he limited them to clearly defined fields. The truth

as Seen through theMonuments of Cairo from theSeventh Century

fulness-to-materials is observed in the floral motifs ism upon the 1913 defeat in the Balkan War: see Halil Berk
principle
of Iznik tiles that "imitate the fossilized imprint of ancient tay, Cumhuriyet Ideolojisi ve Fuat Kbprulu (Istanbul, 1983),
on stone" (les a 35-36. An early discussion
plants vestiges que la vegetation antediluvienne of Anatolian Seljuk architecture
laisse empreints sur la pierre)'. see Marie de Launay et al., Usui, appears in Mimar Kemalettin's 1906 essay, which derives its
11-12, 14-17, 73a. The seventeenth-century collapse of the evolutionary scheme of Ottoman architecture (now labeled
"national" tilemaking industry in Iznik is attributed to civil "Turkish") from the Usui: see n. 28 above. Kemalettin elab
wars: ibid., 6, 25a. Diverse patterns of floral Iznik tiles {faiences orates on the Usui's rationalist paradigm by highlighting
murales) from the sixteenth-century monuments of Istanbul the fundamental distinction between "Turkish" and "Arab"
are illustrated in the final section on Ottoman ornament architecture. Asserting that the Arabs were merely good dec
(pis. 1-22). orators, he argues that the Turks structurally perfected the
30. For nineteenth-century discourses on the "ara tradition of construction
European Byzantine by creating monumen
besque" and the ornamental character of Islamic architecture, tal domed edifices imitating Hagia Sophia: "But this imita
see the chapter "Ornamentalism and Orientalism" in Giilru tion by the Turks is to be considered highly extraordinary.
Necipoglu, The Topkapi Scroll: Geometry and Ornament in Islamic The Turks appreciated the inventiveness of Hagia Sophia's
Architecture (Santa Monica, CA, 1995), 61-109. German his style of construction and improved it." See Tekeli and ilkin,
tories of world architecture considered Islamic architecture Mimar Kemalettin in Yazdiklan, 34-36. Kemalettin's later pub
inferior to that of Europe because itwas not built according licationsincreasingly foregrounded the Turkishness of Otto
to classical "the decorative details of Islamic man and he altogether denied
norms; although architecture, foreign influ
buildings were accepted as beautiful, in their entirety the ences, including that of Hagia Sophia, in an article that he
buildings were seen as bizarre and lacking coherent struc wrote just before his death in 1927: Tekeli and Ilkin, Mimar
ture": see Annette Hagedorn, "The Development of Islamic Kemalettin'in Yazdiklan, 12-13, 201-2.
Art History in Germany in the Late Nineteenth and Early 38. For the five versions of Sinan's see n. 34
autobiography,
Twentieth inVernoit,
Centuries," Discovering Islamic Art, 117? above. The likelihood that Sinan's
autobiographies were
27. Ahmet Ersoy's essay in this volume draws attention to the inspired by the lives of Italian Renaissance artists and archi
parallel between the Usui's rationalist paradigm and that of tects is discussed inmy preface, "Sources, Themes, and Cul
Leon Parvilee's L'architecture et decoration turques, published tural Implications of Sinan's Autobiographies," vii-xvi.
the following year (Paris, 1874), despite the
preface in the lat 39. Ahmet Cevdet, ed., Tezkiretu'l-Bunyan, 1-13. Mehmed Aga
ter, by Parvillee's mentor Viollet-le-Duc, which questions the Oglu expressed doubts about the reliability of the
Quyudat,
very existence of a distinctive tradition of "Turkish art." the whereabouts of which Ahmed Cevdet could not remem
31. Marie de Launay et al., Usui, 31-42. ber twenty-five years after he wrote his preface: see "Herkunft
32. Ibid.,31, 26a. und Tod Sinans," Orientalische Literaturzeitung 29 (1926): 858
33. Ibid., 40-42. There are no elevations and sections of the 66. The anachronisms and errors of the Quyudat were fur
Selimiye in the Usui, nor are its decorative details illustrated. ther exposed in Rifki Melul Meric, "Mimar Sinan'in Hayati,"
Its ground plan is complemented an elevation of Ulku 63 (1938): 195-205. It is dismissed as a forgery in Ibra
by drawing
the forecourt's north portal. him Hakki Konyah, "Mimar Sinan Turktiir, Bizdendir," Tarih
34. This text had been anonymously printed in Istanbul around Hazinesib (1951): 289-93.
the mid-nineteenth century. Together with its longer version, 40. Cevdet, Tezkiretu'l-Bunyan, 13.
titled Tezkiretu'l-Bunyan, it circulated widely in manuscript 41. Auguste Choisy, L'art de bdtir chez les Byzantins (Paris, 1883),
form throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, 139-41, 174. Choisy judged the Selimiye Mosque in Edirne
during which time both texts were cited by various Ottoman as a
"magnifique" edifice constituting the last offspring of
authors. For the five versions of Sinan's and "ilmarque la derniere forme que revetit l'idee
autobiography Hagia Sophia:
their audiences, see Sinan's mere
Autobiographies: Five Sixteenth-Cen de Sainte-Sophie": ibid., 141. See also Alphonse Gos
turyTexts, introductory notes, critical editions, and transla set, Les coupoles d'Orient et d'Occident (Paris, 1889), 131.
tions by Howard Crane and Esra Akin, edited with a preface 42. Cosset, Les coupoles, 142.
by Giilru Necipoglu (Leiden, 2006). 43. Ibid., 146-47.
35. Sinan built no fewer than seventy-six mosques "pour l'honneur 44. Cornelius Gurlitt, Die Baukunst Konstantinopels, 2 vols. (Berlin,
de I'Empire Ottoman, sa patrie, et la glorification de l'islam": 1907). Prior to Gurlitt's monograph, and shortly after pub
see Marie de
Launay et al., Usui, 34, 42. The statement quoted lication of the trilingual Usui, Friedrich Adler (1827-1908),
above is omitted from the Turkish translation. an architect and
professor at Berlin University, wrote an arti
36. For Sinan's competitive with the Byzantine and cle on major mosques in Istanbul: "Die Moscheen zu Con
dialogues
Ottoman past and his contemporary rivals see
European stantinopel: Eine architektonische baugeschictliche Studie,"
n. 2 above and my "Sources, Themes, and Cultural Deutsche Bauzeitung 8 (1874): 65-66, 73-76, 81-83, 89-91, 97
preface,
Implications of Sinan's Autobiographies," in Crane and Akin, 99. Another early publication in German was Armin
Weg
Sinan's Autobiographies, vii-xvi. The domical ner, "Die Moschee Sultan Selim's II zu Adrianopel und ihre
superstructures
of the Suleymaniye and Selimiye mosques are not indicated in der osmanischen Baukunst," Deutsche Bauzeitung
Stellung
on the in the Usui, an omission that 25 (1891): 329-31, 353-55. Gurlitt, who was a pro
ground plans published 341-44,
deemphasizes their parallels with Hagia I owe this fessor at the Konigliche Sachsische Hochschule zu Dresden,
Sophia:
observation to Paolo Girardelli. obtained permission to survey Istanbul's mosques via the dip
37. An important turning point for the rise of Turkish ethnic lomatic mediation of the German ambassador von Bieber
nationalism was the blow inflicted on
pluri-ethnic Ottoman stein. For the fountain of Kaiser Wilhelm II, see Afife Batur,

178 GULRU NECIPOGLU
"Alman Qe?mesi," Dunden Bugune Istanbul Ansiklopedisi (Istan semination from North to South. For his diffusionist theo
bul, 1993), vol. 1. 208-9. ries and formalist methodology, see Oya Pancaroglu's essay
45. Corneilus Gurlitt, Istanbul'un Mimari Sanati, trans. Rezan in this volume; Kaufmann, Toward a Geography of Art, 70
Kiziltan (Ankara, 1999), 59, 66, 96. 73, 85-87; Margaret Olin, "Art History and Ideology: Alois
46. Ibid., xvii. Gurlitt wrongly presumed that the centralized qua Riegl and Josef Stryzygowski," in Cultural Visions: Essays in
trefoil plan of Mehmed II's mosque (1463-70), a theHistory of Culture, ed. Penny Schine Gold and Benjamin
featuring
dome surrounded by four half domes, reflected its original C. Bax (Amsterdam and Atlanta, 2000), 151-70. Strzygowski
form. In actuality, this was the plan of the mosque as itwas declared that "it is the duty of the North to trace its cul
rebuilt in 1767, following an earthquake; the original had ture back to Armenia, Persia, and India": cited in Christina
only a single half dome, above the mihrab. Attributing this Maranci, Medieval Armenian Architecture: Constructions ofRace
monumental mosque complex to the Greek architect Chris and Nation (Leuven, 2001), 155.
todulos (sources have shown that the actual architect was 52. Josef Strzygowski, "Turkler ve Orta
Asya San'ati Meselesi,"
named Atik Sinan), Gurlitt characterized it as a monument Turkiyat Mecmuasi 3 (1926-33, publ. 1935): 1-80.
with a "renaissance" spirit, built at a time when
no such
grand 53. For the biographies and publications of Strzygowski, Gluck,
edifices were being created in Italy: ibid., 57-58. Diez, and Otto-Dorn, see Oktay
Aslanapa, Turkiye 'deAvustur
47. Besides Sinan's "conception of space" (also emphasized in yali Sanat Tarihcileri ve Sanatkdrlar: Osterreichische Kunsthisto
the German architect Friedrich Adler's 1874 article cited in riker und Kunstler in der Turkei (Istanbul, 1993), 24-27, 31
n. 44 above), Gurlitt noted the character and light 38, 39.
organic
ness of the domes in Sinan's mosques, the elegance of their 54. Heinrich Gluck, Turkische Kunst, Mitteilungen des Ungarischen
internal and external columnar arcades, and their distinctive Wissenschaftlichen Insituts in Konstantinopel, Heft 1 (Buda
decorative elements, such as stained-glass windows, woodwork pest and Istanbul, 1917), also discussed in Pancaroglu's essay
inlaid with mother-of-pearl, bold inscriptions monumental in this volume. For
the Hungarian Institute and the search
in scale, and naturalistic floral tile revetments forming "pic for Central Asian in Hungary, see Ya?ar Qoruhlu,
origins
ture panels": ibid., 70-73, 97-102. Adler admired Ottoman "Macar Enstitusu," Dunden Bugune Istanbul Ansiklopedisi (Istan
architecture and drew inspiration from it for his work as an bul, 1993-94), vol. 5, 234, and Tank Demirkan, Macaristan
architect; he was fascinated by the ornamental plainness and Turancilan (Istanbul, 2000).
clear conception of space in mosque interiors (klare, uber 55. Heinrich Gluck, "Turkische Dekorationskunst," Kunst und
sichtliche Raumgestaltung, der es selbst bei grosser Schmucklosigkeit Kunsthandwerk 23 (1920): 46; idem, Die Kunst der Osmanen
in ornamentalem wie koloristischen Sinne an weihevoller Stimmung (Leipzig, 1922), 3-10. Gluck also wrote a book on Anato
nicht gebricht) and the "spatial unity" (Einfachheit der Raumidee) lian Seljuk art, Die Kunst der Seldschuken in Kleinasien und
and "purist character" (puristischer Charakter) of Sinan's mon Armenien (Leipzig, 1923). His special interest in cross-cul
uments: see Hagedorn, "Development of Islamic Art History tural artistic exchanges between the Ottoman and European
in Germany," 122-23. courts is reflected in his "16.-18. Yiizyillarda Saray Sanati ve
48. Franz Babinger, "Die tiirkische Renaissance: Sanatcilanyla Osmanhlarin Avrupa Sanatlan Bakimmdan
Bemerkungen
zum Schaffen des grossen turkischen Baumeisters Sinan," Onemi," which is included with essays by J. Strzygowski, H.
zur Kenntnis des Orients 9 (1914): 67-88. Gluck, and Fuat Kopriilii in a collection titled Eski Turk San
Beitrdge
49. Franz Babinger, "Ein osmanischer Michelangelo," Frankfurter ati ve Avrupa'ya Etkisi, trans. A. Cemal Kopriilii (Istanbul, n.d.
Zeitung, Sept. 7, 1915, no. 248, 1.Morgenblatt. The appelation [1974]), 119-49.
"osmanischen also appears in idem, "Sinan's 56. "Turkler ve Orta Asya San'ati Meselesi," and
Michelangelo" Strzygowski,
Der Islam 9 (1919): 247-48. After the foundation Heinrich Gluck, "Turk Sanatinin Dunyadaki Mevkii," Turkiyat
Todesjahr,"
of the Turkish Republic, Babinger replaced this nickname Mecmuasi 3 (1926-33, publ. 1935): 1-80, 119-28. For these
with "MichaelAngelo of the Turks": see his entry "Sinan" in articles, also see Oya Pancaroglu's essay in this volume. The
Ell. Sinan is identified as "Michelangelo der Osmanen" in K. scholarship of Fuat Kopriilii and his republican ideology are
Otto-Dorn, "Sinan," Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Kunstler analyzed in Berktay, Cumhuriyet Ideolojisi ve Fuat Kbprulu.
von des Antike bis zur Gegenwart, vol. 31 (Leipzig, 1937), 84, 57. See Fuat Kopriilii, "Turk Sanati," reprinted in Strzygowski et
and as the "Michelangelo dell'architettura turca" in Giovanni al., Eski Turk Sanati ve Avrupa'ya Etkisi, 183-89. For Koprulu's
Di Giura, "II Maestro dell'architettura Turca: Sinan," Rassegna personal interest in the scholarship of both of these schol
Italiana 45, 230 (1937): 539. Also see the biographical novel ars see ibid., v-xv.
De Osa, Sinan: The Turkish Michelangelo 58. See Strzygowski et al., Eski Turk Sanati ve Avrupa'ya Etkisi, 96
by Veronica (New
York, 1982). 98.
50. The interdisciplinary collaboration between these two schol 59. Ibid., 180-81. (d. 1949) belonged to the Agaoglu
Aga-Oglu
a role as politicians
ars is mentioned in Heinrich Gluck, "Die bisherige For family, whose members played prominent
and intellectuals in republican as did other Turkish
schung liber Sinan," Orientalische Literaturzeitung 29 (1926): Turkey,
854. See Franz Babinger, "Quellen zur osmanischen Kiinst emigres educated in Russia (such as the Turcologists Zeki
des asiatischen Kunst 1(1924): 31 Velidi Togan and Yusuf Akcura, who espoused pan-Turkism).
lergeschichte," Jahrbuch
art collection at Cinili
41. While serving as curator of the Islamic
51. Josef Strzygowski, Altai-Iran und Volkerwanderung (Leipzig, Kiosk in the Topkapi Palace in 1927, Aga-Oglu taught courses
the migrations of two nomadic on Islamic art at the Dariilfunun as associate professor; the
1917). Strzygowski regarded
was appointed director of the Museum of
races, the ancient Turks of the "Altaic sphere" and the Scyth following year he
ians of the "Aryan sphere," as the mechanism of artistic dis Turkish and Islamic Art. He moved to the Detroit Museum

CREATION OF A NATIONAL GENIUS 1 79
in 1929 and was appointed to the chair of Islamic art his 68. For the formalist methodology of Strzygowski and his stu
tory at Michigan University in 1933. For his biography, see dents, see Pancaroglu's essay in this volume.
Semavi Eyice, "Mehmet Agaoglu," Turkiye Diyanet Vakfi Islam 69. Arseven's earliest essays on national architecture (1906-7)
Ansiklopedisi, vol. 1 (1988), 466. Forinfluential Turcologists echoed the thoughts of Kemalettin: see Tekeli and ilkin,
who emigrated from Russia to Turkey see Berktay, Cumhuriyet Mimar Kemalettin'in Yazdiklan, 27. For Arseven's biography
see Banu Mahir,
Ideolojisi veFuat Koprulu, 31-47, and Francois Georgeon, Aux and publications, ed., Celal Esad Arseven
turc: Yusuf Akcura,
origins du nationalisme 1876-1935 (Paris, Anisina Sanat Tarihi Semineri Bildirileri (Istanbul, 2000). The
1980). architect Sedat Hakki Eldem, who between 1924 and 1928
60. The two articles by Aga-Oglu cited by Gluck are "Herkunft was a student at the Academy of Fine Arts (modeled on the
und Tod Sinans" and "Die Gestalt der alten Mohammedije in Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris) describes the drawing methods
Konstantinopel und ihr Baumeister," Belvedere 46 (1926): 83 that focused on the Ottoman and Greco-Roman orders. For
94. The second article demonstrates that the plan of Mehmed the latter, Vignola's treatise was used as a guide: see Odekan,
II's mosque did not originally feature four half domes (as Yazilan ve Roloveleriyle Sedat Qetintas, 55-56. Both Kemalettin
Gurlitt had thought: see n. 46 above) but overlooks struc and Arseven opposed the use of the Usui as a teaching tool:
tural innovations introduced in this pioneering mosque that see n. 28 above.
were inspired by the encounter with Hagia Sophia, such as 70. Published with a
preface by the Byzantinist Charles Diehl:
the half dome over the mihrab and window-pierced tympa see Celal Esad (Arseven), Constantinople deByzance a Stamboul
num arches on freestanding colossal columns. Aga (Paris, 1909), 151-55.
resting
Oglu's view is contradicted by the the Ottoman historian 71. Celal Esad (Arseven), Turk San'ati (Istanbul, 1928), 3-10.
Tursun Beg's chronicle of Mehmed II's reign, which acknowl 72. Ibid., 6. Arseven emphasizes the "racial character" ('irkin seci
that this mosque was built "in the manner of Hagia
edges yesi) of "Turkish art"; he also refers to the publications of C.
and "modern features constituting a Gurlitt, A. Gosset, L. Parvillee, H. Saladin, G. Migeon, and
Sophia" incorporated
fresh new idiom unequalled in beauty": cited in Necipoglu, G. Margais.
Age of Sinan, 84. 73. Ibid., 145-51. Much

like Arseven, early-twentieth-century
61. Aga-Oglu, "Herkunft und Tod Sinans." Turkish historians
attempted to disprove the view, preva
62. Ibid., 862, n. 1. Aga-Oglu says he obtained a
photographic lent among European scholars, that Ottoman institutions,
reproduction of the manuscript from its owner, Rifat Osman in an Islamic guise, entirely imitated those of Byzantium; to
of the marginal note are reproduced in A. counter this view they stressed the seamless
Bey. Photographs continuity of the
Suheyl, "Mimar Sinan," Mimar 4 (1931): 117; Konyah, "Mimar Ottoman Empire with former "Turkish" states in Anatolia,
Sinan Turktiir,
Bizdendir," 290. namely, the Rum and Beyliks: see Berktay, Cumhuri
Seljuks
63. Franz Babinger, "Zum Sinan-'Problem,'" Orientalische Liter yet Ideolojisi ve Fuat Kbprulu, esp. 23, 30-35, 46-47, 62-80.
aturzeitung 30, 7 (1927): 548-51. Also see entry 74. Arseven, Turk Sanati (1928), 7-11.
Babinger's
"Sinan" in Ell, which insists that the chief architect was "the 75. Ibid., 147, 150-54. Arseven's account of the evolution of
son of Christian Greeks." He adds: "His non-Turkish the "classical style," invented by the architect of the mosque
origin
(muhtedi) is beyond question and is never in dispute, either of Bayezid II and perfected by Sinan, is based on the Usui,
his contemporaries or among all serious Turkish
among although the term "classical" is not used in that source. Remzi
scholars." Oguz Ank, who was sent by the Turkish state to study archae
64. Merig, "Mimar Sinan'in Hayati," 199, and Konyah, "Mimar in Paris, similarly disparages the "tumultuous confusion"
ology
Sinan Tiirktur, Bizdendir," 293. Konyah believes that Rifat (hercumerc) of Anatolian Seljuk architectural ornament, which
Osman forged (or had someone else forge) this marginal becomes "cleansed/purified" (tasfiye) and "codified" (nizama
note, on which water was sprinkled so as to make it appear girmis) in the "dignified" Ottoman "classical age" (kldsik gag).
old. See his "Selguklu Sanatina bir Baki?," ?adirvan 1, 6 (1949):
65. Rifat Osman Bey, "irtihalinin 339'uncu sene 6. For the widespread of national
Tosyavizade acceptance "purity" and
i devriyesimiinasebetiyle biiyiik Turklerden Mimar Koca "purification" as positive ideals in interwar Europe, see Mark
Sinan b. Abdiilmennan," Milli Mecmua 7, 83 (1927): 1335 Mazower, Dark Continent: Europe's Twentieth Century (New York,
48; the marginal note and preface are mentioned on 1337, 1998).
n. 1. The author that some individuals are upset by 76. Arseven refers to the characteristics of the "classical style" as:
explains
Sinan's devsirme origin and the claim that he was the son of nezaket, sadelik, mantiq-i insdni; samimi, asil, vaqur, sadelik ve
Christo. mantiq-, necib ve asil; samimiyet, mantiq: ibid., 6, 93-94. For his
66. Ibid., 1339. Rifat Osman points out that unlike this authentic definition of the term "classical style," see Celal Esad Arseven,
portrait others "seen in some publications are imaginary." Turk Sanati Tarihi: Menseinden Bugune Kadar, 3 vols. (Istan
67. For Kemalettin's publications, and works, see bul, n. d. [1954-59]), 1:300. I would like to thank Halil Berk
biography,
Tekeli and Ilkin, Mimar Kemalettin'in 1-29, and
Yazdiklari, tay for his insightful comments on a previous version of this
Yildirim Yavuz, Mimar Kemalettin ve Birinci Ulusal Mimarhk paper, which alerted me to the striking parallels between
Donemi (Ankara, 1981). For Ayverdi's life and books on Otto texts on
early republican history and on art/architectural
man architecture, see Ekrem Hakki Ayverdi Hdtira Kitabi (Istan the teleological treatment of the Seljuk
history, particularly
bul, 1995). The writings and drawings of Qetinta? are dis period as "pre-Ottoman" history and the essentialized ideal
cussed in Ayla Odekan, Yazilari ve Roloveleriyle Sedat Qetintas ization of the Ottoman "classical age." For nationalist history
(Istanbul, 2004). writing in the early Turkish Republic see
Berktay, Cumhuriyet

180 GULRU NECIPOGLU
Ideolojisi ve Fuat Kbprulu', the contentious historiography

on ler (Ankara, 1965); Omer Lutfi Barkan, Suleymaniye Cami ve
the rise of the Ottoman state is analyzed in Kafadar, Between Imareti Insaati (1550-1557), 2 vols. (Ankara, 1972-79); Ali
Two Worlds. Saim Ulgen, Mimar Sinan Yapilan (Ankara, 1989).
77. Arseven, Turk San'ati (1928), 94-95, 172-76; idem, L'art turc: 84. The outline of chapters is provided in Inan, Mimar Koca Sinan
son origine
Depuis jusqu'a nos jours (Istanbul, 1939), 73, 179-80. (1968), 63-66. For the committee, which included F. Kopriilu,
Arseven criticizes both the eclectic revivalist style promoted A. Refik, R. M. Meric, 6. L. Barkan, L H. Uzuncar?ih, H. F.
by the Usui and the old-fashioned style of the "National Move Turgal, I. A. Kansu, A. L. Gabriel, S. ?etinta?, A. S. Ulgen,
ment." For his defense of modernism see Sibel
Bozdogan's S. H. Eldem, and Y. Akyurt, see Fuat Kopriilu and Albert
=
essay in this volume. Gabriel, Sinan, Hayati, Eserleri Sinan, sa vie, son oeuvre (Istan
78. The rise-and-decline paradigm of nationalist architectural his bul, 1937), 2; Meric, Mimar Sinan, vii-viii.
toriography has been linked with the ideology of the repub 85. Kopriilii and Gabriel, Sinan, Hayati, Eserleri.
lican nation-state in recent critiques, but without reference 86. On p. 2 of the brochure, Kopriilii refers to Gabriel as a "true
to its roots these critiques see Artan, "Ques
in the Usui. For friend of our nation" and his "intimate friend." For Gabriel
tions of Ottoman and the essays of Ayda and his publications, which generally espoused the relative
Identity," 85-109,
Arel, Ugur Tanyeli, and Ayla Odekan in Osmanh Mimarhginin independence of Turkish architecture from foreign influ
"
7 Yuzyih "Uluslarustu Bir Miras, 30-33, 43-49, 56-59. ences and emphasized the primacy of Turkish architects,
79 Arseven, Turk San'ati (1928), 95. see the catalogue of an exhibition curated by Pierre Pinon,
80. Ottoman monuments outside Turkey have generally been titled Albert Gabriel(1883-1972): Mimar, Arkeolog, Ressam, Gez
treated in specialized For = Albert Gabriel
separately, regional monographs. gin (1883-1972): Architecte, archeologue, artiste,
the widespread of Ottoman rule as a period of voyageur (Istanbul, 2006). In a later essay, Gabriel points out
perception
"decline and decay" and "detested alien domination" see Uzi that archival documents "have furnished proof of the prepon
Baram Carroll, eds., A Historical Archaeology of the
and Lynda derance of Turkish workmanship in the mason's yard of the
Ottoman Empire: Breaking New Ground (New York, 2000). Suleymaniye," where Christians constituted the majority of
81. The Society planned the publication of a comprehensive masons (a relatively unskilled trade), and that "many more
national history, Turk Tarihinin Ana Hatlari (Outline of Muslims were employed in the crafts that required not only
skill but also artistic sensitivity." He attributes to
Turkish History), with a section called "Turklerin Medeni technical
(The Service of the Turks to Civilization), the view that "the contribution of
yete Hizmetleri" "deeply seated prejudices"
which included monographs on Seljuk and Ottoman archi the Turks" to the great achievements of Ottoman architec
tecture. It is unclear
whether the monographs titled Osmanh ture was "negligible": see Albert Gabriel, "Ottoman Schools,"
Turk Mimarisi (Ankara, 1932) and Osmanh Turk Mimarhgi Encyclopedia ofWorld Art, vol. 10 (New York, 1965), 852-73.
(Ankara, 1934) were authored by S. H. Eldem or S. Cêtinta?: 87. Kopriilii and Gabriel, Sinan, Hayati, Eserleri, 5-6. Not sur
see Odekan, Yazilan ve Rblbveleriyle Sedat Qetintas, 13. As part an offshoot of the Sinan monograph project is
prisingly,
of the same series, Arseven wrote monographs titled Turklerde the eminent economic historian Omer Lutfi Barkan's study
Mimari (Ankara, 1932) and Turklerde Mimari: Eti ve Selcuk of the centralized construction industry during the erection
Mimarileri (Istanbul, 1934). The latter covers the "Turkish" of the Suleymaniye complex. On the basis of archival docu
architecture of the Hittites and the Seljuks in Anatolia in ments, this study disproves the contention ofWestern schol
Thesis developed ars that Ottoman monuments were entirely created by non
keeping with the Turkish History by the
and non-Muslimbuilders: see Barkan,
Society: see n. 95 below. Turkish Suleymaniye
82. See, Met Inan, Mimar Koca Sinan (Ankara, 1956), rev. 2nd Cami ve Imareti Insaati (1550-1557). On this point also see
ed. (Ankara, 1968), 66-74. The marble statue was modeled Gabriel's view, cited above in n. 86. In a long article pub
on the physiognomy of Ahmet Ozta?, a Turkish stone mason lished in the journal Ulku in 1937-38, Barkan had stressed
in Kayseri, who claimed to the uniquely Turkish non-feudal mode of labor organiza
residing in the village of Agirnas
be a descendant of Sinan. At Afet Inan's suggestion, Sinan's tion under timar system, praising
the Ottoman the imperial
relative and his two sons were invited to the as a centralized, statist, and econ
self-proclaimed regime virtually planned
ceremony in Ankara so that onlookers could compare the omy: see "Osmanh imparatorlugu'nda Ciftgi Siniflann Hukuki
statue with its "living model." The 400th anniversary of the Statiisu," reprinted in O. L. Barkan, Turkiye'de Toprak Meselesi:
Suleymaniye's inauguration
was commemorated in 1957 by Toplu Eserler I (Istanbul, 1980). I am grateful to Halil Berk
two stamps, depicting the mosque and Hasan Riza's portrait for this reference, which is analyzed in his "The 'Other'
tay
of Sinan. Feudalism: A Critique of 20th-century Turkish Historiogra
Its Particularization of Ottoman
83. The unrealized two-volume Sinan monograph triggered several phy and Society" (PhD diss.,
a long period
publications by the Turkish History Society after Birmingham University, 1991).
of gestation: an incomplete edition of the chief architect's 88. Albert Gabriel, "La maitre architecte Sinan," La Turquie Kema
account books of the liste 16 (1936): 2-13; idem, "Les mosquees de Constantino
autobiographies, prepared by Merig; the
to its con 7 353-419. Gabriel's 1926 article notes the
Suleymaniye complex and imperial decrees related ple," Syria (1926):
struction, edited and analyzed by Barkan; and Ulgen's archi Renaissance spirit of Sinan's architecture (419): "l'esprit qui
tectural drawings of Sinan's between 1937 se manifeste dans son oeuvre n'est point sans analogie avec
works, prepared
and 1962. Revised of these drawings were included
versions celui de la Renaissance occidentale...il semble bien que son
ete guidee par des principes a
in Aptullah Kuran's Mimar Sinan (Istanbul, 1986). See Rifki inspiration ait comparables
Melul Meric, Mimar Sinan Hayati, Eseri, Eserlerine Dair Metin ceux de la Renaissance. Negligeant les productions du moyen

age byzantin, il a etudie, dans Saint-Sophie, un edifice tout is today as alive as ever. It preserves the immortal features
encore du genie antique...les architectes turcs of the past." See Ernst Egli, "Sinan the Architect," Landscape
impregne
savaient, des le XVIe siecle, s'inspirer du passe pour creer (Spring 1958): 6-11.
des oeuvres modernes." Also see his "Sainte-Sophie, source 98. Bruno Taut, Mimari Bilgisi (Istanbul, 1938), 71-72, 145
de la mosquee Vie Congres inter 59. Taut's book was translated into Japanese in 1948 and
d'inspiration Suleymaniye,"
national d'etudes byzantines, Alger, 2-7 octobre 1939: Resumes des into German in 1977: see Sibel
Bozdogan, "Against Style:
Bruno Taut's in Turkey, 1936-38," in
rapports et communications (Paris, 1940), 230-31. Pedagogical Program
89. and Gabriel, Sinan, Hayati, Eserleri, 5-6; Gabriel, The Education of theArchitect, ed. M. Pollak (Cambridge, MA,
Kopriilii
"Les mosquees de Constantinople," 353-419. 1997), 163-92. Taut proposed an unrealized project, perhaps
90. Ahmet Refik [Altinay], Turk Mimarlan (Istanbul, 1936). This inspired by Atatiirk's vision of resuscitating the Suleymaniye
document is summarized in an earlier booklet, in which Si as a renamed after Sinan: a garden terrace, to be
complex
nan's birthplace is identified as the village of Agirnas in Kay called the "terrace of those who admire the Suleymaniye,"
seri:see idem, Mimar Sinan (Istanbul, 1931), 44-45. The that would overlook the mosque complex from the adja
same document is cited in an article that identifies Sinan, cent of Istanbul University.
campus See an interview with
the grandson of Dogan Yusuf Aga, as a Christian Turkish Bruno "Turk Evi, Sinan, Ankara," Her Ay (Istanbul),
Taut,
dev?irme: see Enver Behnan "Mimar Sinan Nereli Feb. 1, 1938, 95. A booklet published a year later
?apolyo, highlights
dir?" Uludag 1, 3 (1935): 27-29. the modernist urban design principles of Sinan's mosque
91. Documents cited in inan, Mimar Koca Sinan (1968), 76. complexes:
see Ziya Kocainan, Mimar Sinan ve XXnci Asir
92. Meric, "Mimar Sinan'in Hayati," 195-206. The controversial Mimdrisi (Istanbul, 1939).
official view also ignored the fact that, according to a seven 99. Ernst Diez, Turk Sanati: Baslangicindan Gunumuze Kadar, trans.
source on the "Customs of the Janissaries," Oktay Aslanapa (Istanbul, 1946), i-ii. See Arthur Upham
teenth-century
both Christian Turks and Turkish-speaking Christians were Pope and Phyllis Ackerman, eds., A Survey ofPersian Art from
traditionally excluded from recruitment as Janissary cadets. Prehistoric Times to thePresent (Oxford and London, 1938
For this source, the waqfiyya of Sinan, and an evaluation of 39), analyzed in Kishwar Rizvi's essay in this volume. Suut
the controversy, see Necipoglu, Age of Sinan, 13-14, 42-43, Kemal Yetkin's opening speech at the First International
129-30, 147-52. Congress of Turkish Art criticized A Survey ofPersian Art for
its identification of Ghaznavid, mon
93. In her preface, Afet Inan mentions the prevalence of Turkish Seljuk, and Timurid
names among the Christians and Muslims who had migrated uments commissioned by Turkic patrons as Iranian works:
to the Kayseri see Milletlerarasi
region in the Byzantine period. A visit to Agir Birinci Turk Sanatlan Kongresi, Ankara 19
nas
prompted her to write this childhood 24 Ekim 1959, Kongreye Sunulan Tebligler (Ankara, 1962), 1
biography of Sinan
"in the manner of a historical novel" (tarihi roman uslubu): see 7. The same speech praised Strzygowski, Gluck, and Gabriel
Inan, Mimar Koca Sinan (1956 and 1968). An earlier version as "friends of Turkish art."
of the biography, in the newspaper Ulus 100. Diez obtained
his doctorate in Graz, having written his dis
published (Apr. 9,
1949), is criticized for its anachronisms in Konyah, "Mimar sertation on
the paintings of the Vienna Dioscorides man
Sinan Turktur, Bizdendir," 289-93. uscript. Inspired by Friedrich Sarre, he turned to the study
94. inan, Mimar Koca Sinan (1968), 11-23. of Islamic art at the Berlin Museum. He subsequently joined
95. Bedri Ucar, "Buyiik Turk Mimari Koca Sinan," Mimarhk 1, 3 Strzygowski's institute at Vienna University in 1911, leaving in
(1944): 4. A committee formed by the Turkish History Soci 1926 for Bryn Mawr College, where he taught for a decade.
ety exhumed the body on Aug. 1, 1935 for anthropological He returned toVienna University in 1939 and moved to Istan
examination, and the next day Atatiirk wrote his instruc bul University in 1943. See Aslanapa, Turkiye'de Avusturyah
tion that Sinan's statue be made: see Selcuk Mulayim, Ters Sanat Tarihcileri, 24-25; Diez, Turk Sanati, 6-7, 27, 138-39,
Lale: Osmanh Mimarisinde Sinan Qagi ve Suleymaniye (Istanbul, 170, 192-98. Diez's expression "children of Hagia Sophia"
2001), 142, n. 120. The works of the Swiss physical anthro recalls Choisy's statement quoted in n. 41 above. His syn
pologist Eugene Pittard had an enormous impact on Afet thetic view of Ottoman art parallels Halil Inalcik's formula
inan. The Turkish History Thesis, developed by the Society tion of the Ottoman imperial system as a synthesis of Tur
between 1929 and 1937, attempted to differentiate from the kic, Islamic, and Byzantine traditions in The Ottoman Empire:
"yellow race" the white "brachycephalic Turkish race," which The Classical Age 1300-1600 (London, 1973). I thank Halil
originated in Central Asia and founded the earliest autoch Berktay for pointing out the contrast of Inalcik's perspec
thonous state in Anatolia (the Hittites): see Berktay, Cum tive with that of Kopriilii, who (like Arseven) denied Byz
huriyet Ideolojisi ve Fuat Kbprulu, 47-63; Bii?ra Ersanh, Iktidar antine influences and stressed the uninterrupted continu
ve Tarih: Turkiye'de 'Resmi Tarih' Tezinin Olusumu ity between the Anatolian states: see
(Istanbul, Seljuk and Ottoman
1996). Berktay, Cumhuriyet Ideolojisi ve Fuat Koprulu, 63-64, 80.
96. Behcet "Turk 101. Diez, Turk Sanati, 141-45; idem, "Der Baumeister Sinan und
Bedrettin, inkilap Mimarisi," Mimar (1933).
97. Sinan's reception through the lens of modernism is discussed sein Werk," Du Atlantis 25, 4 (1953): 183.
in Bozdogan's essay in this volume. Ernst Egli, a former pro 102. Diez, 7urk Sanati, 146-58.
fessor at the academy, wrote: "His [Sinan's] greatness lay in 103. Ibid., 232; Arseven, L'art turc, 173. Diez perceptively notes
the complete in his work between form and con the "dualism" oflstanbul's Ottoman mosques, which feature
harmony
tent; his uniqueness lay in his ability to transform the strictly pointed Islamic arches in their substructures and Roman-Byz
individual aspects of the commissions given to him into some antine round arches in their hemispherical domical super
thing of enduring and universal value. That is why his work structures: see Turk Sanati, 194. He argues that Ottoman

182 GULRU NECIPOGLU
in its inability to proceed the Gothic ine Sinan's architectural

architecture, beyond style "empirically, without recourse
mode of construction, was unlike the Italian Renaissance toWestern criteria," in idem, Sinan's Art and Selimiye (Istan
style, which revived the classical orders; this does not dimin bul, 1997), 201-12. He is suspicious of the "semantic" read
ish its greatness, however, for it dared to challenge Hagia in vogue in contemporary
ings very much art-historical the
construction method and dome size: ibid., 197-98. ory, in which new meanings are
Sophia's sought "in the artistic object
Worth pondering is the striking parallel between Diez's con the 'formal-functional' level." For Kuban's
quite beyond
ception of a Mediterranean Zeitstil and the pan-Mediterra views on the shared artistic heritage of the Turks before
nean perspective of Fernand Braudel's famous La Mediter their migration to Anatolia see idem,
Batiya Gocun Sanatsal
ranee et le monde mediterraneen a
Vepoch de Philippe II, which Evreleri (Anadolu'dan Once Turklerin Sanat Ortakhklan) (Istan
was first published in Paris in 1949 but was based on an out bul, 1993).
line already written in 1939. I owe this observation to Halil 118. Suut Kemal Yetkin, L 'architectureturque en turquie (Paris, 1962),
Berktay, who discusses the influence of the Annales school 1-2. Yetkin also wrote books on Islamic art and architecture:
in Turkey in his Cumhuriyet ve Fuat Kbprulu, 83 Islam Sanati (Ankara, 1954) and Islam Mimarisi (Ankara,
Ideolojisi
85. 1965).
104. Diez, Turk Sanati, 183-84, 190, 232, 235. 119. Oktay Aslanapa, Turkish Art and Architecture (London, 1971).
105. For the polemic led by T. Oz, S. Getinta?, and E. H. Ayverdi, For Aslanapa's and publications see Selcuk Mu
biography
see Odekan, Yazilari ve Rblbveleriyle Sedat Qetintas, 38-39. layim, Zeki Sonmez, and Ara Altun, eds., Aslanapa Armagani
106. Oktay Aslanapa and Ernst Diez, Turk Sanati (Istanbul, 1955), (Istanbul, 1996). His subsequently published books include a
97-112. This revised edition omits the controversial refer survey of Ottoman architecture and a monograph on Sinan:
ence to Sinan's Turkish ethnic origin: see 145. Osmanh Devri Mimarisi (Istanbul, 1986) and
Oktay Aslanapa,
107. Ibid., 128-32, 138-41, 150-51. Mimar Sinan (Ankara, 1992).
108. For the tensions between these two divergent views on what 120. Godfrey Goodwin, A History ofOttoman Architecture (London,
constitutes "national style," and a less vocalthird perspec 1971).
tive that interprets Ottoman architecture as a pan-Islamic 121. Metin Sozen et al., Turk Mimarisinin Gelisimi veMimar Sinan
tradition embodying timeless spiritual principles, see the (Istanbul, 1975).
essays of Dogan Kuban, 01u? Ank, and Turgut Cansever in 122. Henri Stierlin, Soliman et Varchitecture ottomane (Paris, 1985),
the proceedings of a symposium titled Mimaride Turk Uslubu 206-7.
Semineri (Istanbul, 1984), 7-30. 123. Aptullah Kuran, Mimar Sinan (Istanbul, 1986); idem, Sinan:
109. Arseven, Turk Sanati Tarihi: Men?einden Bugune Kadar, 1:5 The Grand Old Master of Ottoman Architecture (Washington,
11, 2:658-75. DC, and Istanbul, 1987).
110. Ibid., 1:237, 374-87. The Uc ?erefeli Mosque and that of 124. These include studies by R. Giinay (1987, 1998); A. Petrucci
Mehmed II are identified as
"proto-classical" precursors of oli, ed. (1987); A. R. Burelli Z. Sonmez,
(1988); ed. (1988);
the "classical style," which is characterized by light-filled uni S. Mulayim (1989); J. Erzen (1991, 1996); J. Freely and A.
fied spaces generated by monumental hemispherical domes R. Burelli (1992); L. Bartoli, E. Galdieri, F. Gurrieri, and
on square, hexagonal, and octagonal support systems: L. Zanghieri (1992); O. Aslanapa (1992); M. Sozen (1992);
resting
ibid., 278-301. For the earlier view that the Sultan Ahmed G. Goodwin (1993); U. Vogt-Goknil (1993); A. Akta?-Yasa,
Mosque initiates the "renewal period" (teceddud devri) in ed. (1996); H. Egli (1997); S. Bayram, ed. (1998); D. Kuban
which "new proportions and new characteristics" are intro (1997, 1999). For the full references of these books, see the
duced, see Arseven, Turk San'ati (1928), 158-60. of my Age of Sinan, 567-74.
bibliography
111. Arseven, Turk Sanati Tarihi, 1:216, 335-36; 2:760-70. 125. Kuban, Sinan's Art and Selimiye, 233.
112. Ibid., 2:767. 126. Until quite recently the unparalleled wealth of documenta
113. Examples include Ulya Vogt-Goknil, Turkische Moscheen (Zur tion in the Turkish archives remained largely untapped by
ich, 1953); idem, Les mosques turques (Zurich, 1953); Kurt Erd architectural historians, who have also tended to find Otto
mann, Zur turkischen Baukunst seldschukischer und osmanischer man primary sources tangential to their concerns.
narrative
Zeit (Istanbul, 1958); Behcet Unsal, Turkish Islamic Architecture For example, Kuban, Sinan's Art and Selimiye, 1-15, dismisses
in Seljuk and Ottoman Times, 1071-1923 (London, 1959). as "too prosaic" Sinan's autobiographies, written by Saci in
114. Ernst Egli, Sinan: Der Baumeister osmanischer Glanzzeit (Zurich, what Kuban deems "second-rate verse and prose."
1954); idem. "Sinan the Architect," 6-11. An early mono 127. Recent exceptions with contextual readings emphasizing
graph
on Sinan's works, written by a Turkish historian, is primary written sources include Jale Nejdet Erzen, Mimar
Ibrahim Hakki Konyah, Mimar Koca Sinan'in Eserleri (Istan Sinan: Estetik Bir Analiz (Ankara, 1996); Stephane Yerasi
bul, 1950). mos, La mosquee de Soliman (Paris, 1997); Mulayim, Ters Late;
115. Dogan Kuban, Osmanh Dini Mimarisinde Ic Mekdn Tesekkulu: Necipoglu, Age of Sinan; and J. M. Rogers, Sinan (Oxford,
Rbnesansla birMukayese (Istanbul, 1958), 3-8. For Kuban's 2006).
career and publications see Zeynep Ahunbay, Deniz Mazlum, 128. See the essays of Arel, Odekan, and Tanyeli in Osmanh Mimar
"
and Kutgun Eyupgiller, eds., Prof. Dogan Kuban'a Armagan hginin 7 Yuzyih "Uluslarustu Bir Mir as, 30-33, 43-49, 56-59.
(Istanbul, 1996). Criticizing nationalist paradigms and the rise-and-decline
116. Kuban, Osmanh Dini Mimarisinde, 92-93. narrative that has privileged the "classical style" to the det
117. Dogan Kuban, "Mimar Sinan ve Turk Mimarisinin Klasik riment of others, this revisionist volume seeks to initiate a
5, 45 13-47. Kuban to exam in future studies on the
Qagi," Mimarhk (1967): prefers "supranational" global perspective

Ottoman architectural heritage. Unlike the flourishing field Islam" and that hislegacy belongs to the universal Islamic
of Ottoman history, where self-reflective critiques initiated in civilization rather than being subject to the "exclusive owner
the 1980s have led to innovative readings of the past, archi ship of a city, a dynasty, or a republic," see Gulzar S. Haider,
tectural historians started only in the late 1990s to question "Sinan?A Presence in Time Eternal," Afkar Inquiry 3, 2
the inherited ideological premises of their field, itsmeth (1986): 38-44. A recent monograph published by Albaraka
(such as non-mon Turk Sinan's oeuvre as a timeless architectural
odological impasses, and its exclusions presents
umental architecture, female and sub-imperial patronage, expression of the Islamic concept of tawhid: see Turgut Can
the voices of non-Muslim and "heterodox" Muslim commu sever, Mimar Sinan (Istanbul, 2005). Global surveys of Islamic
nities, regional and provincial subcultures, and cross-cul architecture that focus on the formal values of Sinan's works
recent include John D. Hoag, Islamic Architecture (New York, 1977)
tural exchanges). Other critiques of nationalist his
in Erzen, Mimar and Robert Hillenbrand, Islamic Architecture: Form, Function
toriography include Ugur Tanyeli's preface
Sinan, i-v, and Artan's "Questions of Ottoman Identity." and Meaning (New York, 1994).
129. For the view that Sinan deserves to be called the "son of


National Genius Si̇nan and Historiography of Classical Ottoman Architecture

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Creation of a National Genius: Si̇nan and the Historiography of "Classical" Ottoman

This content downloaded from 128.235.251.160 on Wed, 11 Feb 2015 14:11:30 PM

CREATION OF A NATIONAL GENIUS: SINAN AND THE

toryofArchitecture (1985), which compares Sinan with ations of

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Renaissance Thanks to their

My paper focuses on the dominant discourses of

the "character" of his mosques constitute the

origins and originality of classical Ottoman/Turkish

with the emergence of such narratives

DESIGNATION OF SINANAS ARCHITECTURAL

Sinan was first hailed as the ingenious codifier of an

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the extinction of the "Arab" architectural in manner in Uskiidar:

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theDescription de TEgypte,relegates the "Muhammedan" by Western colonial ambitions in the disintegrating

modern eras.14 Following

with the subjugation of the Arab race by the Osman description

Ismacil Pasha, faithful followers of in a to the dis

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rebirth under the present to de ian Renaissance, he differentiates Ottoman

1520-66). This internally evolving style originates in ment, created

Bursa after initial tect's and "never the

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in his autobiographies, which also testify to his rivalry written, according

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Ottoman intellectual Ahmed Cevdet's

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5a. Pietro Montani, of the Suleymaniye in Istanbul, built in 1550-57. et

al., Usui, "Mosquee Suleimanie," pi. 1)

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acculturated Greek-born Ottoman hints at a manifestation of Sinan's Gosset detected in

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6. Marie de Launay, of the Selimiye in Edirne, built in 1568-74. et al.,

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a and b. Miniature and detail: funeral of the deceased Sultan

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9. Photograph of the Kaiser Wilhelm II Fountain at the

Fig. 8. Title page from Cornelius Gurlitt, Die Baukunst Kon

stantinopels (Berlin, 1907).

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Konstantinopels, pi. 19h)

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19.i MOSCHEEDES SULTANSULEIMANI j

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tinopels, pi. 19n)

Konstantinopels, pi. 18a)

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stantinopels, pis. 26f, 26c)

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call for was

roots of Hungary were in Central Asia;

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its planned publications also included monographs Vienna.57 Strzygowski's

traditions they encountered in lands extending from gins

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